You and I are both media experts. Here we are together on IrishCentral.com, we surf the web, have at least tried social media, and read newspapers, magazines, books (in print or online.) We ingest TV, radio, movies, music, photography, advertising, design, marketing messages, maybe computer games, consuming more media than anyone in history, though that’s a record we’ll break by tomorrow.

We used to read the local paper, listen to a local radio station, chose from maybe a few TV stations to watch. Now we can get it all--text, video, audio—from New York, Boston, Dublin, Belfast and beyond…on our cell phones. A phone call back to the old country used to be pricey, now you can Skype friends across the pond for free, complete with a video connection.

Yes, we are experts enough to have a sense of where the media is, but not so clever that we have a real clue as to where it’s all going.

While the media influences us, many among us are media influencers as well, influencers with Irish roots.

Ah, there there’s the Irish thing (that’s Irish writ large, including diaspora Irish)

How will a people renown as storytellers fare in an emerging media world that places such a premium on conversation? Pretty damn well we think. IrishMediaNation will give ink-or pixels-to the stories of Irish media movers and shakers: journalists, writers, social media pioneers, broadcasters, bloggers, thinkers and entrepreneurs.

I’ll get the conversation going here at IrishMediaNation, but I'll need other experts like you to chime in. Don’t be shy.

To converse a bit about me: I’ve maneuvered all over the expanding and contracting media landscape. I had a radio show in college, have written for newspapers and magazines, done PR and marketing, worked with top print and TV reporting talent, produced and hosted a TV program, served as corporate spokesperson in crisis communications situations, coordinated location shoots for major motion pictures and am active in social media.

And as to my Irish roots: all my grandparents came over on the boat. The only grandparent I knew, my mother’s mother, came from the town of Clara, hometown of the Taoiseach Brian Cowen. Another grandparent was a Kearney, which--that’s right!--makes me a cousin of Barack O’Bama (until proven otherwise and I really hope no one proves otherwise).

Now with all this throat clearing out of the way, IrishMediaNation will be back in a bit with a personal account of an Irishman’s recent 30 seconds of fame on CNN.