Transition Year students can get a one-week work placement in The Irish Times is published in Over to You. Just send us a 200-word piece on a media-related topic.
Eimear Carey, Christ King Secondary School, Cork
Today's teenagers are an interesting bunch, smoking the odd joint, shooting coke into their arms, spending their days in drunken oblivion, engaging in promiscuous sexual activity regularly and generally being driven crazy by hormones, nicotine and other such evils.
Or so goes popular belief. However, the reality is somewhat different. Parents can be forgiven for imagining that their teenagers are "livin' la vida loca". The guilty parties are the individuals in the media who take it upon themselves to scare-monger parents, documenting teenagers like some rare jungle species that merit in-depth study and fascination.
Prime Time's recent special is an excellent example. Grainy footage of groping under neon lights, plenty of empty Bacardi bottles, liberal dosing of darkened rooms with victims recounting their "harrowing" tales - it was enough to make me vomit! It would all have been highly amusing if my mother had not fully digested every second of it and proceeded to scrutinise my own social life in detail.
I think it is safe to say that throughout the country simultaneous lectures sprang up about "carry-on at discos" and "killer drugs". Give us a break! Teenagers have always and will always engage in rebellious behaviour - that doesn't make us delinquents.
Niall McClave, St Macartan's College, Coolshanagh, Monaghan
Friends, The Premiership and The Simpsons - what have all three got in common? Answer: they are all foreign TV programmes or sports which RTE spends the highest amount of time and money promoting and broadcasting.
These days so little is spent on Irish programmes and sports, you could be forgiven for mistaking RTE for BBC 1 or ITV. One of the greatest indications of this seemingly disregard for Irish sports is the sad case of Irish athletes in recent championships.
On the 20th anniversary of John Treacy's historic victory in Limerick, the World Cross-Country Championship was again held on Irish soil. This time the venue was Belfast, and despite the absence of Sonia and Catherina the nation was represented by fine athletes who at least deserved a decent mention on the news that night, something they didn't even get.
The World Track Championships were a little better, with highlights being shown in the evening. But those of us who like to watch our athletes live were forced to turn to the BBC for coverage. To be perfectly honest the BBC, for an English station, made a brilliant effort to provide support for the Irish athletes. So come on RTE, first-class athletes like Ciaira Sheehy and James Nolan deserve better than second-class treatment.
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media scope is a weekly media studies page for use in schools. Group rates and a special worksheet service are available: free-phone 1800-798884.
media scope is edited by Harry Browne.
