The Celtic Network (TCN).

I was happy to write the first piece for the new Celtic Network (TCN).http://www.thecelticnetwork.com/2011/07/23/a-guerrilla-media-how-celtic-fans-are-doing-it-for-themselves/#comments

I think TCN will become an integral part of the Celtic online experience and it may well be copied by the supporters of other clubs.

The piece itself was useful for me to revisit these issues to enhance my own understand of a rapidly changing media landscape.

I recently read Ken Auletta’s best seller “Googled”.

There are two chapters devoted to the effect of the Google revolution on traditional media.

New Media is simultaneously a huge threat and a massive opportunity to my trade.

The companies that own newspapers, both regional and national titles are, for example, imposing a new IT system called ATEX. In this system the journalist writes the copy straight into a made up page onscreen and the vital function of the sub-editor is excised. It cut costs dramatically, but it also subverts quality.

What you are reading is a blog. Although then piece will be spell checked and examined several times it will not be “subbed”.

That is an understanding with the reader. Similarly when one purchases a newspaper (or reads it for free online) there is an expectation that the product has come through an industrial process.

Increasingly that process is being compromised.

On the other side of the equation social media is a mighty weapon in the hands of the trade union activist. Only last week I was able to bring on board Irish branches of the NUJ to support colleagues in dispute in Doncaster in England. This was possible because the fulltime officer assisting these striking workers is followed by me on Twitter. I then connected with Ireland’s fulltime officer in a Facebook chat box. The speed and immediacy of this got the Doncaster issue onto the agenda of the Irish Executive Council. I am a member of the IEC with specific responsibility for New Media so it seemed appropriate and instructive that I was not only raising the issue, but in HOW I had come to know if the Doncaster dispute in the first place.

As I wrote in the TCN blog post the old one way relationship in the media between producer and consumer is over. The message from the consumer of the old media to the producers of that product is clear: interact respectfully and meaningfully or die!