Village

brianthebard

Got this the other day for the craic, and maybe to get another opinion on the lisbon issue. How many articles in it were written by Vincent browne though? and the front page was all about his take on lisbon, but the article in question was disproportionally short. Is it just a vanity project for the editor or is there something more to it? Does anyone read it, what do you think?

jdivision

It has no money so staff have left and Vince has to do it all himself basically

Gekko

I wrote for it before and it took like 3 or 4 months to get paid.

I got the impression that they paid all contributors in one go at the end of the year!

brianthebard

Assuming they make a profit at all gekko? I don't think they can afford to keep a sub editor either, I've noticed a lot of magazines getting sloppy with the auld speeling and grammer ( ) but this was up there with the worst of them tbh.

flogen

I was going to pick up this month's issue until I saw it had a six-page spread on the Brian Cowen / Downfall youtube video.

Gekko wrote: »

I wrote for it before and it took like 3 or 4 months to get paid.

You did well - I'm still waiting to get some of my fee for an article that was published in October 2007; never mind the money I'm owed for two pieces I had published earlier this year.

brianthebard

Lolz there's filler and then there's...FILLER!!!!

Gekko

flogen wrote: »

You did well - I'm still waiting to get some of my fee for an article that was published in October 2007; never mind the money I'm owed for two pieces I had published earlier this year.

Jeez, that's bad. Sorry to hear that.

Maybe you'll get a call sometime in December asking if you're owed any money. I recall getting a call in December 2007 asking this, so I was obviously on their contributor list.

If you didn't, then I'd suggest you chase them up.

Overdraft

flogen wrote: »

You did well - I'm still waiting to get some of my fee for an article that was published in October 2007; never mind the money I'm owed for two pieces I had published earlier this year.

Still, The Village makes The Examiner look like speedy payers....luckily my nephew has generous parents

flogen

Gekko wrote: »

Jeez, that's bad. Sorry to hear that.

Maybe you'll get a call sometime in December asking if you're owed any money. I recall getting a call in December 2007 asking this, so I was obviously on their contributor list.

If you didn't, then I'd suggest you chase them up.

Maybe - have been chasing it for a while though.

Overdraft wrote: »

Still, The Village makes The Examiner look like speedy payers....luckily my nephew has generous parents

I've never written for the Examiner but the SBP pay very promptly - cheques always arrive the week after the first issue of a new month (so I get my money for June after the first Sunday of July).

Would have assumed the Examiner would be similarly organised.

Anyway - before this goes any further off topic, back to Village Magazine!

tbh

I must say I've always liked it - when I could find it, it just doesn't seem to be on sale anywhere.

Pen1987

... because of the current state of affairs in the mag I'm guessing Vince is taking pitches? Or do you have to be on their list of contributers/established political commentator?

flogen

Pen1987 wrote: »

... because of the current state of affairs in the mag I'm guessing Vince is taking pitches? Or do you have to be on their list of contributers/established political commentator?

I'd imagine they're always open to pitches from new contributors, assuming you've got the right idea for them.

monument

brianthebard wrote: »

How many articles in it were written by Vincent browne though?

Around 12 pages out of a total of 80. Which isn't that much, is it?

flogen wrote: »

I was going to pick up this month's issue until I saw it had a six-page spread on the Brian Cowen / Downfall youtube video.

Maybe they are trying to accommodate older readers who do not have net access. / :rolleyes:

From what you said I was thinking they had an in-depth look at it or something, that would have been strange. The stills aren't as bad, but they do look a bit like filler.

Being pragmatic, no matter what the reasons were for using the Cowen / Downfall stills, it's better to fill the pages when you're paying the printers for X amount of pages one way or another.

I'm guessing their printing deal is like the above. Which is a far cry from large newspapers which are not set at X number of pages and anyway often own their printing works - so, filler in newspapers is quite another matter.

flogen

monument wrote: »

Around 12 pages out of a total of 80. Which isn't that much, is it?

I'm just going by the digital version, which for some reason won't load past page 59, but at least 10 pages of that 80 are non-editorial (the 80-count includes the front and back covers, the rest are adverts).

Those 10 pages don't include the adverts that don't take up a full page or the photographs that do take up a full page. It also doesn't include the six pages on the Downfall/Cowen video.

I'd bet that overall at least a quarter of the editorial content is from Browne himself, in this issue at least (I'd be able to give a better figure on that once I see the last 20 pages!). Is that too much? Who's to say? It's certainly unusual.

Maybe they are trying to accommodate older readers who do not have net access. / :rolleyes:

From what you said I was thinking they had an in-depth look at it or something, that would have been strange. The stills aren't as bad, but they do look a bit like filler.

A bit? It's complete filler.

In it's current form it's more than a bit strange, to be honest. Can you imagine a newspaper or magazine giving a frame-by-frame recap of the 6.1 news? Or a current affairs show that consists of people reading newspapers from start to finish?

It's just bizarre to see an outlet from one medium trying to give a blow by blow account of something from another medium like this (I felt similarly bemused when The Sunday Independent gave a full transcript of the Nuala O' Faolain interview, by the way... although at least that was transcribed into text rather than images like this).

Being pragmatic, no matter what the reasons were for using the Cowen / Downfall stills, it's better to fill the pages when you're paying the printers for X amount of pages one way or another.

Village seems to get a lot of content from the likes of OpenDemocracy - surely they could have found one or two articles to put in instead of this? It would have been filler too but it wouldn't have been so blatant and bizarre.

I'm guessing their printing deal is like the above. Which is a far cry from large newspapers which are not set at X number of pages and anyway often own their printing works - so, filler in newspapers is quite another matter.

It may well be - still no excuse for it. There are 100 and 1 things they could have done if they were that stuck. It's either pure laziness or someone in there actually thought it was a good idea.

monument

flogen wrote: »

...In it's current form it's more than a bit strange, to be honest. Can you imagine a newspaper or magazine giving a frame-by-frame recap of the 6.1 news? Or a current affairs show that consists of people reading newspapers from start to finish?

It's just bizarre to see an outlet from one medium trying to give a blow by blow account of something from another medium like this (I felt similarly bemused when The Sunday Independent gave a full transcript of the Nuala O' Faolain interview, by the way... although at least that was transcribed into text rather than images like this).

It's not quite the 6.1 news which is around 30 mins long.

And if it's filler, even if it's strange filler, it's still humorous*.

It may well be - still no excuse for it. There are 100 and 1 things they could have done if they were that stuck. It's either pure laziness or someone in there actually thought it was a good idea.

I think your judgement on it is at least somewhat based on having seeing the video already. But I'm not saying it's not excessive. Six pages of stills is.

I think a lot of those 100 and 1 things that could have been done could have been a lot worse and probbaly not in any way humorous.

(* also a matter of judgement)

flogen

monument wrote: »

It's not quite the 6.1 news which is around 30 mins long.

That's just being pedantic - I wasn't referring to the length of the news, I was referring to its format.

I think your judgement on it is at least somewhat based on having seeing the video already. But I'm not saying it's not excessive. Six pages of stills is.

Not really - it would still be filler were I familiar with the video or not.

I think a lot of those 100 and 1 things that could have been done could have been a lot worse and probbaly not in any way humorous.

I doubt that - there's a lot that could have been done to make the "filler" far less noticeable for a start. Likewise there are a lot of things that could have taken up at least some of the six pages that would have been more than filler.

It may not have been humorous but I never assumed that that's what Village was going for in the first place. If it is, more power to it but in that case it should probably start coming up with its own (preferably media-relevant) material.

brianthebard

monument wrote: »

Around 12 pages out of a total of 80. Which isn't that much, is it?

Well that in part is down to the shortness of the lead article, which was also strange imo. I think they could've really stretched out Browne's own opinions on Lisbon, what's going to happen next, etc, and it would have been more worthwhile than the downfall pics. Also, what percentage of articles did he write, as opposed to how many pages? I'd say he was close to 20% or higher, and certainly the biggest contributor by a long shot. Now I'm not saying he's a bad writer or anything, because he was definitely readable, and just as well in this situation. But as flogen said how many newspapers or magazines would you see this happen in? Even if its not a vanity piece for Browne and was done out of necessity, it could easily come across as such.

edit; just to add, i thought the downfall pics would have been out of place even in the phoenix, which would be were one might expect this sort of "satire". It was lazy and quite clearly filler imo. And the worst type of filler is when its obvious.

monument

...what I'm trying to say is bad, libellous, rushed, or rambling copy would have been worse then the stills.

It indeed look out of place, but I just think a bigger issue is being made of it than is warranted.

flogen wrote: »

That's just being pedantic - I wasn't referring to the length of the news, I was referring to its format.

Sorry, being pedantic is in my nature.

flogen

monument wrote: »

...what I'm trying to say is bad, libellous, rushed, or rambling copy would have been worse then the stills.

It could have been a lot of things - it didn't even have to be an article. They could have put bigger photographs with one or two of the other articles, added an extra page to the 'Letters' pages, sold the extra space at a cut price for an ad (or even put another one of their own ads in) or, as I said, they could have sourced wire copy to fill the void.

It didn't have to be rushed or rambling.

It indeed look out of place, but I just think a bigger issue is being made of it than is warranted.

Well the act on its own isn't such a big deal but I suppose it's indicative of the overall problem within the magazine, or at least what I believe is such. To be fair it's not a mortal sin to give six pages to a mildly amusing Youtube video but to be equally fair it's not exactly the first time the magazine had filler or below-par copy (even just from a grammatical/typographical point of view).

Overdraft

Flogen and Monument, why not agree to differ? The sound of egos clashing is deafening.

A Dub in Glasgo

Picked it up last week when I was in Dublin. Enoyed the read and I particularly liked the Dublin Port bit!

panda100

tbh wrote: »

I must say I've always liked it - when I could find it, it just doesn't seem to be on sale anywhere.

I agree,I can only ever find It in Easons on O'Connell street.They never have it anywhere in Limerick? I always enjoy Chekov's pieces.

Dudess

Overdraft wrote: »

Still, The Village makes The Examiner look like speedy payers....luckily my nephew has generous parents

LOL - and that's saying something! I'm still waiting on payment for articles I wrote in November 2004 and January 2005!

I was supposed to do an interview for a sub-editing position with The Village and the guy kept rearranging the time... then he just stopped ringing all together.

Snickers Man

flogen wrote: »

I've never written for the Examiner but the SBP pay very promptly - cheques always arrive the week after the first issue of a new month (so I get my money for June after the first Sunday of July).

Cheques?

How last century is that?

Haven't these people heard of direct credit transfer?

flogen

Snickers Man wrote: »

Cheques?

How last century is that?

Haven't these people heard of direct credit transfer?

The majority of media outlets I've worked for/with have paid by cheque. I wish they'd pay directly into my bank account but that probably won't happen until it has to (when cheques are finally phased out across the EU).

raven136

i have always enjoyed village but it claerly is a poorer magazine than when it first arrived.
Harry Browne and Feeney are good to read but,it was more enjoyable with Justine Mccarthy,pieces from frank connolly and sport covered by Ger gilroy,Ken Early and Graham Hunter and rugby with pope and edward newman.

It seems that its hard to keep a magazine profitable in ireland despite such good writers

Dundalk Daily

Its hardly appropriate for the moderator of this area to moderate and comment on a publication that he works/worked for in the same thread. As for discussing financial arrangements (or lack off) is not very professional.

Dundalk Daily

Looks like the mod is avoiding comments in relation to him in this thread.

flogen

Dundalk Daily wrote: »

Its hardly appropriate for the moderator of this area to moderate and comment on a publication that he works/worked for in the same thread.

I'm not sure what's inappropriate about that - I don't see how it's inappropriate for me to comment on Village as I'm straight in stating that I've written for the magazine (and for that matter, who I am) so the comments I make can be read in their appropriate context and judged upon by the reader transparently.

I don't see how it's inappropriate for me to moderate a thread about Village as if you're suggesting that as a moderator I might push and edit the discussion in a direction that suits my own opinion or experiences, the same could be said for any topic be it one that I've had experiences with myself or not and me doing so would be very easy to spot.

Why the two together are inappropriate is also something I don't understand - it's not like I'm using my "power" as a moderator to make anonymous attacks on something/someone based on a private vendetta I have with it/them.

As for discussing financial arrangements (or lack off) is not very professional.

My comment of the "financial arrangements" was in response to another comment on a similar theme and was in the context of a discussion on the magazine's quality and financial situation (which are connected, of course). Exactly what is unprofessional about the referenced situation I find myself in may be something we'll have to disagree on.

Dundalk Daily wrote: »

Looks like the mod is avoiding comments in relation to him in this thread.

Actually I just missed it - only spotted it when I saw your follow up post from Today.