As Mediahuis Ireland reaches 100,000 online subscribers, four reporters reflect on how their roles have evolved

Irish Independent

14 hours ago

To reflect on the milestone, four journalists write about how their work has changed since the Irish Independent's website launched its paywall five years ago.
Conor McKeon (Sports journalist)
Bob Knight, the legendary American college basketball coach, had an especially dim view of sports writing and its practitioners.
'Most of us learn to write by the second grade and then move on to other things,' he said.
The gig has changed, but probably not so much that the now late Knight would reappraise his opinion.
The main difference being accountability. Time was the sports section was just the back part of the newspaper, packaged with the serious journalism: crime, politics, celebrity gossip, horoscopes.
Like a tub of Quality Street, it was just assumed there was something for everyone. It didn't matter whether you considered your little corner of the paper to be the sought-after caramel cups or the dreaded coffee creams. It was all the one tin. Sold as a single unit.
Now, snazzy metrics such as 'user engagement minutes' relay not just how many people read your hurried 800-word report from a small, frozen provincial GAA ground with dodgy wifi, but how long they persisted with it.
This is a terrifying vista for those of us whose job it is weekly to conjure new ways to describe the choreography of a student kicking a ball over a bar.
Take Rory McIlroy's win at the Masters in April. Being at Augusta National that week was to witness something profound and historic. Sporting mega news on local and global scales.
Brandel Chamblee, one of the sharpest minds in sports analysis, said on NBC's Sunday morning programme that McIlroy would start his final round under 'the most pressure of any golfer' in major history.
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Which was undeniably true. But in trying to win the Masters, McIlroy never experienced pressure quite like trying to produce something on McIlroy winning the Masters that was worth reading.
Nobody waits until the morning editions to find out yesterday's results any more. But there is intense demand for context, analysis, colour and interpretation. Not what happened necessarily, but why and how it happened.
Building an audience of subscribers means means being able to cater specifically for tastes, to gauge what lands and what doesn't. To best deploy those skills we learned in second grade.
Maeve McTaggart (Multimedia reporter)
When I started working as a journalist almost three years ago, I occasionally met people – and still do – who told me how rarely they saw newspapers out in the wild any more.
I think some of those I met felt like they were breaking some very unfortunate news to me: that I had missed the golden age of newspapers, and that it was over before I even had the chance to get started.
Of course, they are right in many ways. Commuters are scrolling on their phones and print is no longer the industry it was. But people are still reading the news, they're still eager to know more beyond the headlines – and it's clear that quality, trusted reporting and analysis are more important than ever.
I am not from a newspaper-buying generation. I grew up with Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and all the positives and perils of social media as a news source.
While print may be on the way out, the need for insightful and trusted journalism is definitely not. Online coverage and commentary can be constant, all-consuming and confusing.
My job as a multimedia reporter did not exist when I started secondary school in 2012. I knew I wanted to be a journalist, but I did not know what the industry would look like by the time I got there 10 years later.
Quality journalism remains the priority, but video, podcasting and a digital-first approach have changed how stories are covered, providing more insight, more live coverage and more transparency in reporting.
The methods may have changed, but the needs have not. And it is clear that a subscription to journalism you trust has become as essential as that morning coffee or streaming subscription.
Ralph Riegel (Southern correspondent)
Irish Independent subscribers have transformed my working life.
When I began my journalism career more than 40 years ago, I worked in a newsroom where typewriters were the norm and you submitted a typed story at 6pm to be published in a newspaper you could buy only from 7am the following day.
Podcasts and video reports were unheard of. And computers were the size of a large cabinet, not the sleek smartphones that are now in every pocket.
Most newsrooms had communal phones and, famously, one regional newspaper even had a payphone for its journalists where coins were dispensed very sparingly.
Journalists covered courts with shorthand notebooks and pens, not laptops. The advent of digital journalism has transformed everything.
I recently covered the Central Criminal Court murder trial of Richard Satchwell, which ran for six weeks in Dublin.
On a busy day, I would file a mid-morning report, a lengthy lunchtime update and a late afternoon wrap before working on a 1200-word summary that ran online and in print.
I would also file a daily video wrap and appear on The Indo Daily podcast that offered a more detailed analysis of trial proceedings. All of which is driven by the knowledge that subscribers want their news in different ways.
Our news cycle has gone from a timeframe determined by the effectively medieval print technology of Johannes Gutenberg to the digital power of Silicon Valley and the 21st century. News is now immediate.
An old mentor of mine told me that our main job as journalists is to offer a voice to people who, for whatever reason, cannot be heard in society.
Without you, our subscribers, that would not be possible.
So, from one veteran journalist, thank you for your support.
Katie Byrne (Money editor)
Incisive personal finance reporting, led by award-winning journalist Charlie Weston, has always been a cornerstone of the Irish Independent.
But as our subscriber numbers have grown, we've seen that our audience wants to read not only personal finance news but also people's personal experiences with major money decisions.
Reflecting this shift, we launched 'Indo Money' earlier this year.
It's a dedicated hub for everyday money matters, with new voices and fresh perspectives. We publish seven days a week, alongside a weekly newsletter and a soon-to-launch podcast. Charlie Weston continues to lead the charge with breaking news stories and in-depth analysis. We've broadened the scope of our reporting to reflect the human side of money and tell the personal stories behind the latest personal finance headlines.
What's interesting is that our subscribers now play an active role in the stories we tell. Over the past few months, through our subscriber-only newsletter, we've been engaging with our audience and inviting them to share their personal finance questions with our team of experts.
Occasionally these questions become follow-up articles. With the reader's permission, we publish their question along with the expert response. We've taken this a step further with our latest columnist Eoin McGee. As a subscriber-only perk, readers can send their personal finance dilemmas directly to him.
Meanwhile, money reporter Saoirse Hanley is starting important conversations with our audience through questionnaires on social media. By inviting readers to share their experiences, we get a wider range of perspectives that leads to more nuanced reporting.
The term 'community-building' gets thrown about a lot these days. But we believe we're building a space that cultivates a deeper connection with our subscribers. They know they can rely on us to crunch the numbers and compare the best deals.
We're getting to know our subscribers better, and just as they're learning more about money matters through our journalism, we're learning from the questions they ask us and the experiences they share.
It's a two-way street.