Janice Hadlow, Controller of BBC Four, has been named as Oxford University’s News International Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media (2006-20007), in succession to the satirist Armando Iannucci. The visiting chair affords figures in the broadcast media world an opportunity to explore and explain their understandings of the impact of the broadcast media on society. Hadlow’s four lectures after Christmas promise to be thought-provoking, especially her first (on Tuesday 21 January 2007): ‘The Importance of Being Serious – Why Serious Television Still Matters In The Digital Age’. Let’s hope that Oxford or the BBC might think about doing interesting with the lectures, like broadcasting them online?

So, welcome then, Al Jazeera English, the English language service of the (in)famous arabic 24hr rolling news channel Al Jazeera. There will be teething problems. There will be political disagreement about it. It will take time to build the capacity and audience and credibility of CNN and the BBC’s News 24/World channels. And, quite frankly, there will be some bad or boring television.

Nevetheless, all this aside, today’s launch must be given an unqualified welcome. Diversity in news can only be a good thing. I will therefore be watching online until ntl get around to offering it to their long-suffering Dublin subscribers!

Richard Delevan on Newspaper Columnist Loses $7m Libel Case. In America. To a Judge. It is a thoughtful story, with many striking details, and some good advice to journalists. But for me, the most interesting perspective is that, even in America, libel cases and damages awards can still be bonkers!

By the eighth amendment to the Irish Constitution, adopted in 1983, Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution now provides:

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.

Yesterday, in a closely-watched case and a long-awaited decision, the High Court gave judgment on the question whether in vitro embryos constituted ‘unborn’ for the purposes of this provision. In MR v TR [2006] IEHC 359 (15 November 2006), McGovern J held that they did not. Read the rest of this entry »

What a subject line, eh? Not, I think, the most common angle on the story. Anyway, I have posted a message (html | listserve) on the Restitution Discussion Group mailing list raising questions as to the legal nature of U2’s claim. Read the rest of this entry »

Apart from the Baby Ann case, two other stories caught my eye, one relating to another judgment of the Supreme Court yesterday (my, they were busy!), the other relating to current controversies in third level education in Ireland. Read the rest of this entry »

Who would be a judge, when faced with two sets of parents willing to provide a home to a child? Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided N v Health Service Executive [2006] IESC 60 (the ‘Baby Ann’ case). Reversing the High Court, the Supreme Court held that a two-year-old girl who has lived with her prospective adoptive parents since she was three months old is to be returned to her natural parents on a phased basis. It was a desprately difficult decision, and my heart goes out to everyone affected by the decision.

There is extensive coverage in today’s media. Read the rest of this entry »

The most ambitious study of ageing ever undertaken in Ireland was launched today in Trinity College Dublin by the Minister for Health. The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) has been made possible through a €4 million research donation from Irish Life and a contribution from The Atlantic Philantrophies.

There was some pre-launch positive press. Read the rest of this entry »