Type of site | Online satirical newspaper |
---|---|
Created by | Newton Emerson |
URL | PortadownNews.com |
Commercial | No |
Launched | 2001 |
Current status | No longer updated |
The Portadown News was a satirical web-based newspaper dealing with Northern Irish politics and culture. It was written (initially anonymously) by journalist and political commentator Newton Emerson, who had been raised in Portadown in County Armagh. Its format and style were similar to The Onion .
The site was updated fortnightly, with the first issue appearing in March 2001. In November 2001 Freeserve dropped the site after receiving complaints. [1] In April 2001, the following month, Emerson was forced to leave his job with a Belfast telecommunications company after Robin Livingstone, the editor of the nationalist-republican Belfast newspaper Andersonstown News , named him as the website's editor. [2] Livingstone accused Emerson of pro-unionist bias. Emerson had written anonymously out of fear of reprisals but suffered no consequences from being outed beyond receiving occasional email threats. [3]
The website resulted in a weekend spin-off newspaper column in the Sunday World , and a bestselling book. Emerson has also written for The Irish Times , The Irish News and the Irish edition of The Daily Mirror . In 2005, Emerson stopped writing the Portadown News in order to write a column for The Mirror, but the site remained online. [3] As of 13 March 2017, the site is not available.
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. The Irish Times is considered a newspaper of record for Ireland.
The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply The Mirror. It had an average daily print circulation of 716,923 in December 2016, dropping to 587,803 the following year. Its Sunday sister paper is the Sunday Mirror. Unlike other major British tabloids such as The Sun and the Daily Mail, the Mirror has no separate Scottish edition; this function is performed by the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail, which incorporate certain stories from the Mirror that are of Scottish significance.
Ruby Florence Murray was a Northern Irish singer. One of the most popular singers in the British Isles in the 1950s, she scored ten hits in the UK Singles Chart between 1954 and 1959. She also made pop chart history in March 1955 by having five hits in the Top Twenty in a single week.
Portadown is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town sits on the River Bann in the north of the county, about 24 mi (39 km) southwest of Belfast. It is in the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and had a population of about 22,000 at the 2011 Census. For some purposes, Portadown is treated as part of the "Craigavon Urban Area", alongside Craigavon and Lurgan.
Craigavon is a town in northern County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Its construction began in 1965 and it was named after the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland: James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon. It was intended to be the heart of a new linear city incorporating Lurgan and Portadown, but this plan was mostly abandoned and later described as having been flawed. Among local people today, "Craigavon" refers to the area between the two towns. It is built beside a pair of artificial lakes and is made up of a large residential area (Brownlow), a second smaller one (Mandeville), plus a central area (Highfield) that includes a substantial shopping centre, a courthouse and the district council headquarters. The area around the lakes is a public park and wildlife haven made up of woodland with walking trails. There is also a watersports centre, golf course and ski slope in the area. In most of Craigavon, motor vehicles are completely separated from pedestrians, and roundabouts are used extensively. It hosted the headquarters of the former Craigavon Borough Council.
Metro is the United Kingdom's highest-circulation freesheet tabloid newspaper. It is published in tabloid format by DMG Media. The newspaper is distributed from Monday to Friday mornings on trains and buses, and at railway/Underground stations, airports and hospitals across selected urban areas of England, Wales and Scotland. Copies are also handed out to pedestrians.
Amanda Jane Platell is an Australian journalist. Between 1999 and 2001 she was the press secretary to William Hague, the then leader of the British Conservative Party. She is currently based in the UK.
The Sunday Independent is an Irish Sunday newspaper broadsheet published by Independent News & Media plc, a subsidiary of Mediahuis.
The Irish Daily Star is a tabloid newspaper published in Ireland by Reach plc, which owns the British Daily Star.
Thomas David Simpson is a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician in Northern Ireland, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Upper Bann from 2005 to 2019. On 6 November 2019 Simpson announced that he would not be standing for re-election in the 2019 general election.
Kevin Myers is an English-born Irish journalist and writer. He has contributed to the Irish Independent, the Irish edition of The Sunday Times, and The Irish Times's column "An Irishman's Diary".
The Oval is a football stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which has been home to Glentoran F.C. since 1892.
Ronnie Carroll was a Northern Irish singer, entertainer and political candidate.
Portadown College is an academically selective, co-educational post-14 grammar school in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
Mark Dickson is a former semi-professional footballer from Northern Ireland. He began his football career as a trainee with Northampton Town, for whom he made one first-team appearance in the Football League Trophy, before returning to his native country, where he played for Newry Town, Larne, Linfield, Crusaders and Donegal Celtic. He won the Irish League and Cup double in successive seasons with Linfield, and scored the winning goal for Crusaders in the 2008–09 Irish Cup Final.
Newton Emerson is a political commentator from Portadown in Northern Ireland, and now lives in Belfast. He described himself as a 'liberal unionist' in 2001. He contributes to both the Sunday Times, and The Irish News as well as The Irish Times.
Thomas Milne Sloan was an Irish professional footballer who played as a half back. He began his career in Northern Ireland with Irish Intermediate League side Crusaders while also serving as a policeman. He joined Football League First Division side Cardiff City in 1924 where he spent five years and made more than 90 appearances in all competitions. His playing time with the club was often limited due to competition with club captain Fred Keenor, but he did play for the side in the 1927 FA Cup Final as they defeated Arsenal to become the only team from outside England to win the competition.
Colin Duffy is an Irish republican, described by the BBC as the most recognisable name and face among dissident republicans in Northern Ireland. He was cleared of murder charges in three court cases involving police and army killings.
The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper, published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. It was founded as a broadsheet in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner. The Sun had the largest daily newspaper circulation in the United Kingdom, but was overtaken by freesheet rival Metro in March 2018.
Malcolm Brodie MBE, was a Scottish-born journalist.