Six random things about The Irish Times
Sinéad has tagged me with a meme thing, although she apologises to those who hate this kind of thing. I enjoy reading others, but hate when these things when they come to me. I won’t tag anyone else, but I will write six random things about The Irish Times:
1) There are two main editorial conferences a day, morning and afternoon, each of which is chaired by the editor. At these, any issues from that day’s paper are discussed and various department editors outline and discuss what’s on their pages for the next day.
2) There’s a book sale on Thursday, a regular occurrence during which the “overflow” books are put on sale by the books editor, and the proceeds given to charity. It is always a sight to behold. The staff are like wasps over spilled Fanta.
3) The News department is on the second floor. Sport is on the third floor. Features is on the fourth - this is where my desk is. I have a great view all the way down Temple Bar.
4) A lot of Scandinavian media workers visit here to see how things are done.
5) The very late newsdesk shift that runs into the early hours is referred to as being “on Nighttown”.
6) On sunny days, the windows in this building heat up to something like 1200 degree Celsius.
Boring. Tell us instead about all the bitching, backstabbing and jockeying that goes on
Comment by Hannah | April 29, 2008 at 10:11 amI was being shown around a newsroom once by a newspaperman and was finally shown the small section at the end of the room partitioned by a glass wall. He said that’s where the put together the evening sister paper - “We call it Big Brother – it’s full of young people with big ideas fighting and screaming and at the end of every week one c*** leaves”.
Comment by Ivor | April 29, 2008 at 11:05 amHannah - I could tell you about the initiation rights we all have to go through, but that would break the secret NUJ/Masons code.
Ivor - Delightful. Cheers.
Comment by Shane | April 29, 2008 at 12:13 pmHannah, that’s what the John Waters column is all about…
Comment by Sean | April 29, 2008 at 1:11 pmShane, are the daily editorial meetings a forum for robust debate or are they merely a self congratulatory schmooze fest?
I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when the whole Kevin Myers/ B*stards debate blew up.
Comment by Brock Landers | April 29, 2008 at 2:32 pmBrock, You know what it’s like in the Daily Planet? Well…
Comment by Shane | April 29, 2008 at 3:12 pm