'The sight of two Gaelic footballers French kissing, on an enormous billboard in Kerry. That memory still gives me pleasure to this day'

Q&A: JOHN RYAN,publisher of new satirical website
Broadsheet.ie, talks to EOIN BUTLER

You started your career as a war correspondent, reporting from places such as Bosnia, Chechnya and Rwanda. That's true . But I prefer not to talk about it, man.

Is that a thousand-yard stare?Yeah, let me just stick a Marlboro in my mouth here. No, I went as a freelancer when I was about 22. I was in Sarajevo five or six times and I suppose I was in the line of fire a few times. It was my reckless youth, I guess. There was lots of stuff that I wanted to do, and I went out and did it. I don't think I went because I was courageous. I think I went because I was afraid. I wanted to prove myself.

And at what point – I don't know, maybe you were taking fire – did you think, well, this is all very well, but I need to know who Rosanna Davison is going out with?I think it was around the time of the Srebrenica massacre . No, seriously, the way I rationalised it when we were launching VIP is that people needed a bit of cheering up. And that's even more so the case today with Broadsheet.

What do you aim to do with Broadsheet?Just to build an audience, I guess. If we build an audience we'll see where we go with it. It's going to involve a lot of people from all over collaborating to create something. I don't envision it being a big money-spinner, but it will be a comedy website that updates every 15 minutes, five days a week.

This venture will inevitably invite comparisons to your hugely popular Bloggorah website. You seem to be happy enough to accept those comparisons.Yeah, I'd genuinely love to see if I could take what we were doing with Bloggorah and develop it a little further. Of course, Bloggorah was very good at what it did, it was very funny. So it'll be difficult to top that. But we'll try.

For a new media venture, you've given it a very old media name.To be honest, I was looking for a very bland name that didn't suggest anything cute or funny. Even in terms of design too, we're keeping it very simple. Maybe I'm showing my age, but I look at other websites and I'm just overwhelmed by an overabundance of detail. It's very simple. In fact, I think it looks best on an iPhone.

Bloggorah introduced us to a world of Irish micro-celebrity we hadn't even realised existed. Are you looking forward to picking up where you left off?Absolutely. On our very first day, we covered the launch of the Dublin Theatre Festival programme. Not the launch of the theatre festival, but the launch of the theatre festival programme. I hope no one thinks we're being nasty though. It's just a bit of fun. As for the "celebrities", they haven't gone away you know.

Are you concerned that, with the demise of the Celtic Tiger, there might be fewer pompous targets for that brand of satire?You would think so. But someone just sent me a link to Gavin Lambe Murphy, where the crisis du jour was that he'd lost a Gucci loafer. He also posted an update applauding the no-phones policy at Guilbaud's. So I think plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Finally, you have had a long career in publishing. Which of your various efforts down the years are you most and least proud of?For least proud, I'd definitely have to say Stars on Sunday.

It's often contended that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the general public. As the publisher of 'Stars on Sunday', were you proud to be the person who finally torpedoed that idea?Yes, thank you Eoin. That's a good line. I've used it myself in fact. But yes, Stars on Sunday was a complete disaster. No doubt about it.

And your proudest moment?Probably the billboards we erected around the country that featured two GAA players kissing. Although I lost a huge amount of money on that magazine, it was worth it in a way. The sight of two Gaelic footballers French kissing, on an enormous billboard in Kerry. That memory still gives me pleasure to this day.

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