Horrific RTE news website

highdef

OK, so the Eurovision is just finished and I was browsing on the net. All the main news websites (BBC, Sky, The Journal, etc) have the news of the win and have nice photos and screengrabs about the win.
Went to RTE news website and not only is there no mention of it but the main headline is about a guard who can now access the Garda PULSE system again after being denied access for 18 months. OK, Eurovision is not a big story in the grand scheme of things but it is still a big enough story for the time of night and RTE seems to be gone to bed for the night. I'm just picking Eurovision as an example. There are countless other examples of slow reactions (rather than being pro-active) from RTE. We are expected to pay hefty sums of money to them but they can't even have any up to date information about what is going on in the world, news wise.

22:50 was the last update on the website so everyone must have gone off home before the show ended.

28064212

http://www.rte.ie

Eurovision is in the entertainment section, not news

Absoluvely

Also, navigating the website for schedules and live streaming events is appallingly tedious.

And they leave "click here"s in articles for the mobile app even though they don't work on the app.

Hotale.com

Absoluvely wrote: »

And they leave "click here"s in articles for the mobile app even though they don't work on the app.

THIS! Ridiculously amateur of them, even a small business would have the cop on to realise that this is a no no that has to be fixed.

Ludo

Some random garda eh? You watch a lot of news I guess. Stick to the tabloid type sites and stay away from the more serious news sites.

Absoluvely

Hotale.com wrote: »

THIS! Ridiculously amateur of them, even a small business would have the cop on to realise that this is a no no that has to be fixed.

Actually the BBC do it too

Hotale.com

Absoluvely wrote: »

Actually the BBC do it too

Don't mind them Brits :P

Mountainsandh

I agree, it's very poorly tended, and tedious to navigate. Updates are slow, and the new layout highlighting only 3 or 4 news stories was a ridiculous move, I hate having to click "more" every time. Not every one wants to check sections every time. It's an awkward, unattractive, slow website, and I'm a big consumer of news.

highdef

Ludo wrote: »

Some random garda eh? You watch a lot of news I guess. Stick to the tabloid type sites and stay away from the more serious news sites.

I never said he was a "random guard". I said he was a guard. Whether he is a sergeant, a super or whatever does not matter. I just stated his occupation. I didn't get into the ins and outs of the news story on purpose.

Back on topic, why is the news story in the entertainment section of the website? It's a fairly big event and whether you like it or not, it is mainstream news. Ok, it could be in the entertainment in addition to the main news website but it should at least be in the news section.

And as I said, I am just generally speaking about the slowness of RTE to update their news website as things happen, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I merely used Eurovision as a currently occurring example.

Mr Pseudonym

highdef wrote: »

I never said he was a "random guard". I said he was a guard. Whether he is a sergeant, a super or whatever does not matter. I just stated his occupation. I didn't get into the ins and outs of the news story on purpose.

It's on-topic because you referred to it in your OP. The removal of the restriction represents vindication for McCabe, and also the first step on the path to reform of the Garda force. It's a big story in the Irish realm; I'm not sure that a Eurovision SC final without Irish representation is.

As regards the site, it is not owned by RTE. This is a blog post by Adrian Weckler that deals with it.

"Many people might assume that RTE's website is part of the broadcaster, funded by the licence fee. It is not. It is, in fact, a commercial spin-off of RTE. In essence, it is little difference from a private company that has won a franchise to use RTE's brand."

allthedoyles

Sure thats nothing - up to this evening RTE Aertel hadn't been updated since 7pm Friday .

Corholio

It appeared in the entertainment section, where it should be, pretty soon after it finished. Don't understand what the problem is.

You hardly expect it to be a main news story.

Mr Pseudonym

Corholio wrote: »

It appeared in the entertainment section, where it should be, pretty soon after it finished. Don't understand what the problem is.

You hardly expect it to be a main news story.

In fairness, as the OP said, it is frontpage everywhere else - BBC, SKY, Guardian, Telegraph, etc.

Corholio

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

In fairness, as the OP said, it is frontpage everywhere else - BBC, SKY, Guardian, Telegraph, etc.

It's on the front page of the RTE website as well.

Mr Pseudonym

Corholio wrote: »

It's on the front page of the RTE website as well.

I know. I was responding to what you said, though: "You hardly expect it to be a main news story."

lertsnim

On the front page I see "Austria's Conchita wins Eurovision 2014". It is under the Entertainment section where it belongs.

The Eurovision is not a main news item.

icdg

Mr Pseudonym wrote: »

I
As regards the site, it is not owned by RTE. This is a blog post by Adrian Weckler that deals with it.

"Many people might assume that RTE's website is part of the broadcaster, funded by the licence fee. It is not. It is, in fact, a commercial spin-off of RTE. In essence, it is little difference from a private company that has won a franchise to use RTE's brand."

Weckler slightly misrepresents the situation there. The "private company" concerned is RTE Commercial Enterprises Limited (formerly CEL, these days it trades as RTE Publishing) which is a wholly owned subsidiary of RTE. They may have the legal form of a private limited company but they are no more a private company, in state ownership terms, than 2RN or Irish Rail or the Tote. The ultimate owner of the website is indeed RTE.

They are though very much distinct from the licence fee funded News and Current Affairs division. And they do very much do their own thing from News (including a time a few years back when they ran very loaded polls on the website which was a very inappropriate thing to do and they were pulled up on it.). They also use incorrect logos for RTE News and RTE Sport, as well as referring to the news bulletins by incorrect names ("One News" instead of "RTE News: One O'Clock") It is not very well known but they run RTE News Now (even though it broadcasts no commercials!) as it was originally a spin off from the News website.

highdef

Ok, so now the story is in with the main news section. If it shouldn't be there and be in entertainment (according some), why has it appeared here at such a late stage? The original reason I started this thread.....too slow to respond to the news of what's going on in the world.

Mountainsandh

Article written, published, or at least edited at 15.55pm on Sunday !

The opinions of previous posters here are just that, opinions of what should or should not be news.

I'm not at all into sports and do not think some sporting news items are suitable for the main news section, and yet at times, they are featured as breaking news stories. For example, soccer managers/coachers PR faux pas.

OP is right, this is a news item, and its appearance on RTE was very much delayed, relative to other news outfits.

lertsnim

It was on the RTE website on Saturday night. Hardly delayed.

Mountainsandh

Not on the main news section. That's the whole point of this thread, no ?

watty

However, RTE News site has gone text light and photo / video heavy, as has BBC. Both have become a lot poorer in recent years.

RTE's though even poorer.

Irish Web based news from established sources is I think in general poor.

Also I want to READ, not stare at videos on tinny laptop speakers.

Onthe3rdDay

watty wrote: »

Also I want to READ, not stare at videos on tinny laptop speakers.

To be fair if you're able to read or look at videos on laptop speakers you're either a god or the superhero Daredevil .

watty

Of course.

Also for fun ...

Try exchanging BBC news web links with someone in UK. Very often it's impossible. Not only do they insist that UK users can't access bbc.com and non-UK can't access the bbc.co.uk the SEO friendly links for the SAME articles are not just the domain name edited (which works on ebay for most .it, .co.uk, .ie, .de, .com links etc).

drdidlittle

Has anyone else noticed the rte news website is pure muck the last few days. Keeps jumping into a banner add. Use this site to keep up to date with things but I'm losing the will to live with it......

icdg

We don't drag up old threads