Slugger O’Toole

A Flaming Summer

Only the most devoted conspiracy theorist could deny climate change given the devastating events of recent weeks. Spring was marked by deadly fires in Canada, terrible floods in Northern Italy and even an unfamiliar heatwave in Northern Ireland. Now things have got even more deadly, with awful new fire outbreaks in Greece, Italy Algeria and

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‘Journalists have always had to have integrity’

The media are at a crossroads, with fears over the future of some of Northern Ireland’s best known newspapers. Existing trends favouring social media over print newspapers have been accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis, with additional financial pressures from a collapse in advertising revenues.   This is an appropriate moment to reflect on the future

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Podcasting

Podcasts are a useful medium, even though listener numbers are not always massive.  But if considered as an alternative to a series of public meetings, their value is significant.  They can be cheaper and gain more listeners than would be attracted to a meeting.  They can be a way of collecting together different voices, without

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Magee or not Magee

There is definite support in Derry for Ulster University’s proposal for a graduate entry medical school at Magee campus.  After 53 years of exasperation that the city does not have a full sized university, actual excitement for such ideas is always tempered by fear that it will not happen.  But at least the city’s response

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