'Why do we need journalism, what is it for and what does it actually do?' are not questions you might expect a newspaper to ask, but in truth these issues are on the minds of media news rooms across the world whether its print or broadcasting, daily, weekly or even on the web. Free article

By now, many of our readers will know that An Phoblacht will launch as a new monthly on 24 June. The paper is adapting, like most print media, to the phenomena of online media and is also changing its format - the new monthly edition will be crammed with interesting features, interviews and analysis. This edition will complement the vastly improved, dynamic web presence. Free article

BORN into a working-class family in London in 1955, it was as much the basic sense of social justice he absorbed from his English father, a dyed-in-the-wool Labour Party man, as the birthplace of his mother in Dublin's markets district, off Ormond Quay, that shaped John Hedge's politics. "We were never a heavy political family but we knew where we stood - uncompromisingly Labour and fervently anti-Tory," he explains. Free article

Who has the right to comment on the Croke Park Public Service Agreement? Labour leader Eamon Gilmore says that political parties should not 'interfere' in what is a matter for public sector workers. They should be left in peace, he says, to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the agreement and make their decision accordingly. Free article

They looked very much at ease standing outside what was once the bastion of an united monolithic Unionism. The leaders of the devolved Assemblies of Scotland, Wales and the Six Counties were at Stormont to discuss the fine mess the British Exchequer had got them into and the cuts that would be necessary to get them and all of us, out of it. It being the mountain of debt, the £893.4 billion British deficit. Generations for years to come will be climbing that mountain to pay for the greed of the bankers, financiers, the marketing men and the Royals, none of whom are being asked to tighten belts, take pay cuts, or face the job axe. Free article

The new British Prime Minister David Cameron has been setting out his ideas for the economy in the Six Counties. His Secretary of State Owen Paterson has talked about making the jurisdiction the "most business-friendly region in the whole of Europe." This sounds just like the economic policy of the joint UUP/Tory election manifesto, which was thoroughly rejected by Northern voters in the recent Westminster election. The UUP was wiped out and any association with the Tories was electorally toxic, to the benefit of Naomi Long, Sylvia Hermon, and of course most spectacularly Michelle Gildernew. Free article

Bhí go leor caint sna meáin an tseachtain seo caite faoi chomóradh Éirí Amach na Cásca i 2016, agus comóradh an chéid d'imeachtaí tábhachtacha eile i stair na tíre seo sna blianta romhainn, síniú an Covenant, an Somme agus araile ina measc. Bhí Brian Cowen ag maíomh go mbeidh siadsan (an rialtas, Fianna Fáil?) ag cosaint cuimhne an Éirí Amach agus Nelson McCausland ag maíomh as na céiliúrtha a bheas acu sa traidisiún aontachta. Free article

The release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 after 25 years in South African prisons was celebrated across the world, including by republicans in Ireland. But another release that year was a reminder that there were hundreds of Irish political prisoners and that many of them had endured very long sentences and appalling conditions. Free article

Poor auld Declan O'Loan, eh? What was he thinking? He puts a couple of Wolfe Tones CDs into the car, starts humming A Nation Once Again, and next thing you know he's had an attack of nationalist unity. Free article