Blather on TV: Sue does the Big Bite

Sue Walsh gets her 15 minutes on the Big Bite by talking to David McWilliams about the concept of blogging. Why, she isn’t quite sure. On air at 2.25pm tomorrow and repeated at 8:30 am Wednesday morning on R.T.E.1

I’m in R.T.E reception, along with five other pale, lost looking people. We are here to talk about blogging, and why we do it. I’m plastered in make up and have a microphone under my dress (!). I approach the couch, where David McWilliams is waiting.
‘The Big Bite’ is a daytime discussion program hosted by the wonderful David McWilliams; the broadcaster and journalist. He is also (allegedly) the man who coined the phrase ‘The Celtic Tiger‘.
The program is aired every day at 2:25pm, and usually focuses on human interest stories. The reason we were invited onto the program was to discuss blogging, as this is a new concept to some of their viewers. They also wanted to know what our relationship to mainstream media was, and should they feel threatened. I managed to tell David McWilliams that he is an endangered species.
The lights are hot, the questions are quick, and I feel a little nervous, so I smile a lot and try and stay in the game. We have twenty minutes to get our view across, so it is a little difficult to say everything I would like to. The conversation mostly drifts to politics, but I do get to mention Flann O Brien and Charles Fort.
I wonder why I was asked onto the show. We are introduced as the best online writers in Ireland, but Dave, Damien and Barry have much more claim to that title. I know I’m here partly to make up the female numbers (Damien: nonsense…)
The R.T.E lady, when she rang me to invite me on the show, mentioned that my profile must be an imaginary one. No, I explained, it is all true. My mother did catch me carrying kittens in my mouth when I was three and I used to live in a wood. She seemed interested, and particularly that I was female. Apparently not so many women write online. Is this true? I’m just someone who likes to write, I hadn’t really thought of it in terms of gender.
The interview progresses and the questions are flying. We talked about the effects of blogging on the mainstream media, and its growing appeal as a news-source. I get the feeling that neither David McWilliams nor the other bloggers had ever read blather.net; as the questions directed towards me didn’t seem to focus on anything we write about. Perhaps they will be a little more curious now that I have stumbled (gracefully I hope) through the interview.
My fellow bloggers were articulate and interesting, and seemed mainly to write about politics.
I don’t think I embarrassed my mother either, like she feared. I didn’t mention that she forgot me once outside our local community centre when I was six, and I had to make a bed out of grass…
You can see the interview at 2.25pm tomorrow and repeated at 8:30 am Wednesday morning on R.T.E.1
Other bloggers interviewed:

Slugger O’Toole

Back Seat Drivers
Gavin’s Blog

The Blog and I
Richard Delevan’s sicNotes
Bernie has an MP3 of the program on Irish Eyes »
Big Byte Podcast »
Blog TV Metric: Sue gets top billing! »
‘ Sue Walsh got the most views: 100. Within 24 hours of posting the images, Sue’s followers swamped the Flickr site and view her image three times as often as others on the panel. Sue wins–most viewers and deepest reach–in the online side of the Big Bite show.’

suzanne

Sue Walsh was partly brought up by cats in her native Wexford, where along with her brother, she scoured the river for junk. At the age of three her mother caught her carrying kittens in her mouth. She lived in the woods for a while, then the lure of the stage was too much, and she ran away with a theatre company. This enabled her to keep her multiple personalities happy, and so she is continuing to act whenever the opportunity arises. When not on stage or the silver screen, Sue can be found scribbling away and conducting séances. She is still scouring the river, hoping to find treasure in amongst the junk, just like Suzanne in the song...