Factbobs

Like Fingerbobs, but made with facts, instead of digits.

Factbob1:
Speaking in UCC at the student Law Society Law Conference, Seamus Dooley of the NUJ conceeded that standards in newspapers have fallen in recent years.

Factbob 2:
At the same conference Gary Davis, the Deputy Data Protection Commissioner said that
(a) Gardai were accessing telecommunications data at a rate of 10,000 requests a year.
(b) the Data Protection Commissioner’s office, despite the fact that they nominally fall under the control of the Minister for Justice welcomed DRI’s action against the government on Data Retention. This was because it would bring clarity to an important issue.
(c) that the Commissioner’s office intended to be more strict on non-compliance with the DP Acts.

Factbob 3:
There have been more than 1000 reads of the Paper Round Raw Notes for the Sunday Independent. See the figures tick up in real time here.

10 Comments

  • Elsie says:

    I read your paper round-up and loved it so much that it inspired me to set up my own newspaper-centred blog! It’s only a humble little thing, but if anybody wants further reasons to never pay for an Independent newspaper again, it provides some reasons 🙂 Cheers, Elsie http://www.anexceptiontotherule.blogspot.com

  • chekov says:

    Gardai were accessing telecommunications data at a rate of 10,000 requests a year.

    jeepers creepers, that’s a big number, especially when each request can be very non-specific iirc – “show us all the logs for monsieur x” type of thing. I’ve never seen any mention of the volume of such requests in the meeja before and I have looked. If the press were performing their fabled fourth estate role, it’s exactly the type of thing that they should be all over.

    I read your paper round-up and loved it so much that it inspired me to set up my own newspaper-centred blog!

    Hooray! Another success for the paper round meme.

  • Celtictigger says:

    Just out of interest… how many journos picked up on the admission by their uber-Chapel-meister that their standards were less than good?

    Would have thought they’d have noticed that one?

    Did he offer you a few column inches in the NUJ newsletter to advertise, or would you have had to join and then sacrifice your standards?

  • Celtictigger says:

    10000 requests a year… that’s around 300 a day on average… good grief. It’s back to the semaphore and pigeons for me. This telecommunications lark is far too public.

  • Simon McGarr says:

    Elsie- I’ll be checking your site out later today. Hope you’ll have some fun with it. I’m delighted we inspired you.

    Chekov- Only the Irish Times was at the conference. They may have mentioned the rate of access. This was the first, and so far only, annoucement of that rate. The only other figure available was orally announced by the Data Protection Commissioner at the launch of his Annual Report. But it didn’t cover a full year.

    Celtictigger- The admission was made in the context of an acceptance of the need for self regulation, rather than a confession after seeing the Paper Round pies.

    And 10,000 a year is a lot.

  • Celtictigger says:

    Simon…

    The fact that no mainstream paper has picked up on the admission from the NUJ’s top man for self-admission is still somewhat ironic in the context of paperround… I hope you gave him the URL of the wiki.

    Please tell me you did…. it’ll be like an early Christmas.

  • Simon McGarr says:

    Just to see your little face light up, I can tell you that I spoke briefly to Mr. Dooley after his speech, told him about the Paper Round and gave him one of my little Moo cards, so he could find the site.

  • Celtictigger says:

    Ahhh… merry christmas one and all.

    Tiny Tigger.

  • […] But Tuppenceworth readers might be forgiven for finding the story a little familiar- as we told you the same thing back on the 5th December. […]

  • […] greeted its passage two years ago. Last summer, the Data Protection Commissioner’s office revealed that requests for records were coming in by the thousands from gardaí, expressed concern at the […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.