I do not know the reasons behind the Namawinelake decision to stop operations, but the announcement that the blog will cease publishing new material starting from tomorrow was a shocker for me.
I can attest from my own & others' experiences that those of us who run anything independent of the officialdom mouthpieces (regardless of political / ideological orientation or even the lack of one) have near-zero support (moral or citations- and links-wise) from our internal (not to be confused with international) media and all businesses.
Those in our society, including the traditional media, who only benefit from the free analysis and the climate of openness and debate the independent analysts help to create prefer to endlessly endorse and support, including via advertising revenues, cross-links, citations and readership, those who offer no alternative but consensus.
In contrast, independent analysts in Ireland operate in the environment of constant, usually indirect, 'soft', pressure from the part of the Irish society which is fully aligned with the official elite. This 'aligned' sub-section of Ireland often has direct and indirect support (including financial) from major business, political and ideological organisations in this country, and even from European organisations. Because of this, Irish new independent media remains relatively small, under-resourced and often marginalised.
The rarity of honest, no-spin analysis in this country is exemplified by the rarity of excellence regularly provided by a handful of independent blogs, like Namawinelake. To say that Namawinelake will be missed is a massive understatement for me, personally.
Any healthy society requires healthy dissent both in the traditional and new media, funded and resourced by the society that values debate, honesty, independence and discourse. Any healthy economy requires a healthy society. It is a benefit to businesses, their customers, their investors, as well as in the interest of the entire nation to nurture and support such dissent. I can only hope that Namawinelake closure had nothing to do with our collective and repeated, long running failures to recognise the immense personal, social and economic values of the independent new media.
I can attest from my own & others' experiences that those of us who run anything independent of the officialdom mouthpieces (regardless of political / ideological orientation or even the lack of one) have near-zero support (moral or citations- and links-wise) from our internal (not to be confused with international) media and all businesses.
Those in our society, including the traditional media, who only benefit from the free analysis and the climate of openness and debate the independent analysts help to create prefer to endlessly endorse and support, including via advertising revenues, cross-links, citations and readership, those who offer no alternative but consensus.
In contrast, independent analysts in Ireland operate in the environment of constant, usually indirect, 'soft', pressure from the part of the Irish society which is fully aligned with the official elite. This 'aligned' sub-section of Ireland often has direct and indirect support (including financial) from major business, political and ideological organisations in this country, and even from European organisations. Because of this, Irish new independent media remains relatively small, under-resourced and often marginalised.
The rarity of honest, no-spin analysis in this country is exemplified by the rarity of excellence regularly provided by a handful of independent blogs, like Namawinelake. To say that Namawinelake will be missed is a massive understatement for me, personally.
Any healthy society requires healthy dissent both in the traditional and new media, funded and resourced by the society that values debate, honesty, independence and discourse. Any healthy economy requires a healthy society. It is a benefit to businesses, their customers, their investors, as well as in the interest of the entire nation to nurture and support such dissent. I can only hope that Namawinelake closure had nothing to do with our collective and repeated, long running failures to recognise the immense personal, social and economic values of the independent new media.
9 comments:
Why is it gone? There has to be some reason
Totally in awe of namawinelake and its contribution to transparency totally lacked by the main stream media. Will surely be missed. We are now a society reliant on external media sources like the FT to bring clarity and transparency to a country totally corrupted by the Fine Gael/Labour PR machine.The cabal of party advisor's and senior civil servants have something to toast about this week as perks and non-accountability and more quangos are back on the agenda.
A great day for Irish society that the voice of democracy is silenced.
Ken Byrne
Constantin,
The level of ignorance and mis-information in this country with regards to political, social, financial and economic matters is truly staggering. The media and in particular the financial media (to the extent it exists) are an embarassment.
Keep up the good work, your contributions and output have never been more necessary and valuable.
David
Strangely enough this may backfire on those that are no doubt delighted to see the back of it. The web site was threatened with legal proceedings recently and I sincerely hope the threat of being sued for substantial sums of money by former Anglo boss in NI has not contributed to the closure if this blog.
Now that we are not being told what is happening we can only guess and my guess is that this will back fire badly on Ireland's insiders, grafters and financial elite, who despite being able to have laws such as the "insolvency legislation" and NAMA itself tailor made for them, are obviously still not satisfied until they have silenced all dissent.
What can one say? The islands of sanity are evaporating in a celtic mist...
FT Alphaville were hiring, I sincerely hope that is where NWL is going.
Thanks NWL!
JC
Constantin makes very pertinent points on the durability of the establishment elite, including the mainstream media.
I have worked online since 1997 and journalists have no problem using my content, but it's very rare to get credit for it.
We remain a very conservative country where change if it happens at all is at glacial pace.
Coincidentally on Sunday, I was writing on the timidity of The Irish Times.
The Irish Times: Timidity in turbulent economic times
I shouldn't be surprised, but what really sickens me is the expressions of regret at the suspension of NWL by those who suppress comment and presentation of analysis and who curtail, close down and distort engagement and debate. I won't name names, but they know who they are.
On the same weekend that NWL shut down, TNS Radio, another independent outlet, suddenly announced a total and permanent closure, citing threats and harassment as the main reason. The main man at TNS stated he was putting the safety of his family ahead of his work with the station. Possibly coincidence, or are TPTB genuinely trying to silence all dissent using threats and intimidation?
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