Thanks for all the comments that are arriving for `over to you'. The three Transition Year students below will all get one-week work placements in The Irish Times. So can you: if you haven't written, write now! If you have, write again!Every time we turned on the radio or TV last week all we heard was the same ones mouthing off about how EastEnders portrayed Ireland. I believe this is the work of one very clever publicity team with one very shrewd publicity ploy. Ever heard the expression "no publicity is bad publicity"? I thought everyone had, but with the way half the nation has been ranting and raving I'm beginning to wonder. Just wait and see - it'll be hard to find someone who didn't see the
EastEnders omnibus or at least one of the week's broadcasts. The show has upped its ratings for the week and perhaps even found a few more followers - honestly, don't tell me any of you who watched The Irish EastEnders don't want to know what's going to become of poor old Mary Flatherty from Killmaleen!
Cian O'Callaghan, Mayfield Community School, Cork
The illusion that smoking is cool is still present in the minds of our young smokers. But I do not think their admiration comes from ads, but from films and TV. The meaningless designs on the backs of magazines do not give children the incentive to start smoking, but when they see their favourite film stars and TV idols looking so cool as they stand with a cigarette on the tip of their lips, they see a hero, an icon, someone to admire. So it is not ads for "Silk Cut Purple" but our TV icons who are promoters of disease and death. They are the sellers of the dreaded cancer sticks.
Rebecca Stuart, Wesley College, Ballinteer, Dublin
In a time when sports events are among the most watched programmes on television, commentators appear to be unable to pronounce the names of the stars correctly - or even consistently. Mary Hannigan's comments in The Irish Times on how Bobby Robson managed completely to mispronounce footballer Juninho's name epitomises the sloppy standard of commentary on all such events. Why does a paying audience not expect and receive a much higher standard?
Write to media scope by posting your comments to Newspaper in the Classroom, The Irish Times, 11-16 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2, or faxing them to (01) 679 2789. Be sure to include your name and address, your school's name and phone numbers for home and school.
Or you can use the Internet and e-mail us at mediapage@irishtimes.ie
media scope is a weekly media studies page for use in schools. Group rates and a special worksheet service (see `faxback', left) are available: Freephone 1-800-798884.
