The Irish Times

The Irish Times

Project: Digital communications consultancy involving online content creation, podcasting, digital media and social media strategy and digital skills training.

“Athena Media designed and implemented a social media training programme specifically tailored for Irish Times journalists, covering everything from the practical details of setting up and running Twitter accounts to the business rationale and professional implications of social platforms for media companies such as ourselves.To date, almost 100 Irish Times journalists have participated in this bespoke programme, which has resulted in a measurable increase in digital skills, output and engagement across our editorial team.
As we continue the process of positioning our company to meet the digital challenges which lie ahead, Athena’s expertise and training skills have been essential, and we hope to continue working with them into the future ”
Client: Hugh Linehan Irish Times
Case Study: The Irish Times – introducing the newsroom to audio podcasting and social media for journalism.
In February 2011 we pitched camp in The Irish Times for a month during the 2011 General Election and worked as an embed unit to help the newspaper think digital and reposition their work into digital content as audio and video stories. We set up a daily podcast channel produced from the heart of the newsroom and began The Irish Times journey into podcasting.
After the embed month we handed back processes and procedures to the newsroom to help it move forward and begin crafting its own online content. In 2012 Helen Shaw was invited back by the new editor, Kevin O’Sullivan, to mentor the editorial staff on using social media, particularly twitter, as a journalistic tool.  Across six months journalists, sub-editors, photographers and administrators worked with Helen in a series of workshops designed to help the newsroom create social media guidelines, strategy and to manage the disruptive wave of digital. Our aim was to help the newspaper realise its strengths in the digital environment and to empower its journalists to use social media as part of their daily routine both to find things out and to share information.