As awards for Irish student media go, these are the big ones. They also happen to be the only ones. The National Student Media Awards 2009 were held in the Mansion House on April 2nd. The whole event, from free alcohol to shiny victory paperweights, was organised by the generous souls at oxygen.ie, which we may or may not be obliged to say is the best website since Pirate Bay, while being considerably less exposed to the Swedish justice system.
Speaking of which, not all our readers may be aware that Sweden requires compulsory military service of its citizens. The penalty for dodging this duty is unknown, but when our half-Swedish editor, Martin McKenna, picked up the gongs for Editor of the Year and Newspaper of the Year, he was notably keen to draw attention away from himself.
His strategy of heaping praise on his wonderful staff, without whom all this would have been impossible and all the rest of it, was lost on some of that uncharacteristically presentable rabble by that stage of proceedings. TN2 editor Hugh McCafferty, for one, could certainly have benefited from a hearty pint of water (and a shave, but that’s a different story), although at least Caroline O’Leary managed not to fall off the stage this year. We await 2010 with interest.
