VILLAGEAugust/September 
D
URING thes and into the
s, you could tell the silly sea-
son had officially arrived when the
Sunday Press ran a story asking if Neil
Blaney was about to rejoin Fianna Fáil. Some
time between the dénouement of Garret
FitzGeralds time as Taoiseach and the dis-
patch of the Sunday Press, the silly season
signifier metamorphosised into a piece on
whether the government should rejoin the
Commonwealth, inevitably by Éamon Ó
Cuív. Sometimes, just for a change, the story
would be ‘Arming The Guards, ‘Abolishing
Compulsory Irish From The Leaving’ or the
ever-popular ‘Getting Rid Of The Seanad’.
No-hopers, all.
As late as the dearth of summertime
meat allowed James Gogarty to impose him-
self on the public consciousness in July and
to sustain a paranoia in the body politic so
far into September that it spawned at least
one , and arguably three, tribunals over suc-
ceeding years.
The old reliables were stories editors knew
they could reheat when things got quiet as
the Oireachtas went on holidays and the
courts shut up shop for the summer.
Things are a little more disciplined now,
and the MacGill Summer School marks the
end of the Dáil term, albeit endured by an
increasingly sceptical press.
Politicians, academics and other worthies
are relied upon to reflect in depth, as they
see it, on what a wonderful country Ireland
would be if they spent the other  weeks
practising what they preach in Donegal, and
the political correspondents get to enjoy a
few pints in Glenties pubs in the company of
the plain, ageing, people of Ireland.
The silly season doesn’t mean there isn’t
any news to report. There are alleged geno-
cides in the Middle East, Ebola in Africa, and
the ongoing war of nerves between Russia
and Ukraine. And there are all those com-
memorations marking the outbreak of the
First World War.
But newspapers are set up to serve their
audiences, and news, like politics, is ulti-
mately local.
In ‘Why are National Parliaments so
Unpopular? Journalism, Information and
Sentiment, DCU political scientist Eoin
O’Malley and others published a graph show-
ing the number of political articles appearing
each month in five Irish daily newspapers in
. The graph provides a striking visual
illustration of the silly season effect, as it
dips perilously in August. But political cov-
erage is about personalities and party power
struggles, and not so much about policies,
so there’s not much to write about when the
protagonists are on holidays.
“This decline in political coverage is most
pronounced for the Irish Times and the Irish
Examiner, O’Malley noted. “The findings
suggest that political coverage in these
newspapers depends to a greater extent on
stories emanating from the Government and
Oireachtas.
There was also a less-pronounced dip
in April when the Oireachtas sat for just
six days (because of Easter) but when the
Government continued to meet.
Reporters complain all the time about
slow news days, when a cute dog in distress
leads the headlines. According to journalistic
legend, the BBC took this to its logical con-
clusion on the Good Friday of  April ,
as the newsreader solemnly announced
There is no news today. For the rest of the
bulletin listeners were treated to a piece of
piano music.
But there is another kind of slow news
day. The Slow News movement advocates a
more reflective news, taking time to stand
back from a story and repeat it in full, rather
than simply posting the latest updates daily
without context. Take a moment to think of
how many government reports, inquiries,
or legislative changes are reported in full.
At any given time, one or two major stories
will drown out the others. Slow News takes
those stories that get lost (or sometimes,
deliberately buried) in the rush, and gives
them the attention they deserve. What bet-
ter time than the silly season, as the airwaves
fill again with wafts of Tom McGurk and
Kathryn Thomas to revisit and re-analyse
those unread or under-digested reports?
“The problem is not the new technol-
ogy of the news, but rather how quickly we
have been enslaved by it, veteran US polit-
ical journalist Walter Shapiro wrote about
Slow News. “Thinking, real thinking, takes
as much time today as it did when the news
was disseminated by fast-fingered telegraph
operators. Deprived of context, facts do not
speak for themselves. Analysis and inter-
pretation of the news are needed to spur
comprehension – and not just as an excuse
for ideological rants and as a way to rack up
cheap political points”. •
MEDIA SILLY SEASON
Lessons in reflectiveness from summers silly season. By Gerard Cunningham
Slow news days and movements
Number of articles per month on Irish politics
Jan
200
400
600
800
1000
Feb Mar Apr May Jun
2012
Irish Times
Irish Independent
Irish Sun
Daily Mail
Examiner
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec