Abstract
Anticipating two poignant anniversaries in northern Irish politics in 1988, the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent had this to say about the events in Duke Street on 5 October 1968: ‘the BBC in Northern Ireland would not go near it, such was the esteem in which Stormont was held at Ormeau Road. The campaign was as much a fight for airtime as it was for civil rights.’1
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Notes
David Hearst, ‘Bloody march down Ulster’s memory lane’, Guardian, 30 December 1987.
See inter alia, Rex Cathcart, The Most Contrary Region The BBC in Northern Ireland 1924–1984 (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1984).
On the social history of broadcasting, see Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff, ‘Serving the Nation: Public Service Broadcasting before the War’, in Waites, Bennett and Martin (eds), Popular Culture: Past and Present, (Oxford University Press, 1982); Jean Seaton and Ben Pimlott, ‘The Struggle for “Balance”’, in Ben Pimlott (ed.), The Media and British Politics (Aldershot: Gower, 1987); also Asa Briggs, The BBC: the First Fifty Years (Oxford University Press, 1985).
For the politico-historic background, see Perry Anderson, ‘The Figures of Descent’, New Left Review 161, January/February 1987; Stuart Hall, ‘The Rise of the Representative/Interventionist State’ in Gregor McLennan, David Held and Stuart Hall, (eds), State and Society in Contemporary Britain: a Critical Introduction (Oxford: Polity Press, 1984); Paul Addison, The Road to 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975).
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso/New Left Books, 1983).
Cathcart, op. cit., p. 86.
On ‘Outdoor Relief’ and the unrest in Belfast in the 1930s, see Paddy Devlin, Yes, We Have No Bananas: Outdoor Relief in Belfast, 1920–39 (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1981); Ronnie Munck and Bill Rolston, Belfast in the Thirties: an Oral History (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1987).
Anthony Smith, ‘Television Coverage of Northern Ireland’, Index on Censorship, 1 (2), 1972, p. 18.
See, for example, Terence Brown, The Whole Protestant Community: the Making of a Historical Myth (Field Day Pamphlets, no. 7, 1985).
Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: the Orange State (London: Pluto Press, 1980) pp. 110–115.
See James Curran and Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: the Press and Broadcasting in Britain (London: Methuen, 1985).
Cathcart, op. cit. p.89.
Ibid., p. 170.
Ibid., p. 263.
Quoted in Cathcart, op. cit., p. 173.
F. R. MacKenzie, ‘Eden, Suez, and the BBC — a Reassessment’, The Listener, vol. 82, no. 2125, 18 December 1969.
See, inter alia, Philip Schlesinger, Putting ‘Reality’ Together: BBC News, 2nd edn (London: Methuen, 1987).
See, inter alia, Bernard Sendall, Independent Television in Britain. Volume 2: Expansion and Change, 1958–68 (London: Macmillan, 1983).
See Belinda Probert, Beyond Orange and Green: The Political Economy of the Northern Ireland Crisis (London: Zed Press, 1978) ch. 4; Bob Rowthorn and Naomi Wayne, Northern Ireland: The Political Economy of Conflict (Oxford: Polity Press, 1988) ch. 6.
The phrase comes from Richard Hoggart’s Uses of Literacy (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957). He was also an influential member of the Pilkington Committee.
Brum Henderson, ‘Ulster Television — A special 20 years’, European Broadcasting Union Review, XXX (5), September 1979.
For an overview, see John Darby, ‘The Historical Background’, in John Darby (ed.), Northern Ireland: The Background to the Conflict (Belfast: Appletree Press, 1983).
Patrick Buckland, A History of Northern Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1981) p. 86.
Liam De Paor, Divided Ulster (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972) p. 130.
On O’Neillism, see Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, The State in Northern Ireland, 1921–72: Political Forces and Social Classes (Manchester University Press, 1979) chs. 5 and 6.
Liz Curtis, Ireland: the Propaganda War. The British Media and the ‘Battle for Hearts and Minds’ (London: Pluto, 1984) p. 18; and by the same author, ‘British Broadcasting and Ireland’, Screen, 27(2), 1986, p. 47: ‘Up until British troops went onto the streets of Derry and Belfast in August 1969, unionist politicians policed the radio and television coverage of Ireland. Together with the usually compliant broadcasting chiefs, they ensured, till the end of 1968, that virtually no criticism of their unjust, anachronistic “province” reached the airwaves.’
Disturbances in Northern Ireland: Report of the Commission Appointed by the Governor of Northern Ireland (London: HMSO, Cmd. 532, September 1969).
Ed Moloney, ‘The Media: Asking the Right Questions?’, in Michael Farrell (ed.), Twenty Years On (Dingle: Brandon, 1988) pp. 139–40.
Keith Kyle, ‘The Ulster Emergency and the BBC’s Impartiality’, The Listener, 4 September 1969, pp. 297–9.
See Curtis, 1984, op. cit.
Stuart Hall, ‘Deviance, Politics, and the Media’, in Paul Rock and Mary Mcintosh, (eds), Deviance and Social Control (London: Hutchinson, 1974) p. 286.
Philip Elliot, ‘Reporting Northern Ireland: a Study of News in Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland’, in Race, Ethnicity and the Media (Paris: Unesco, 1978) p. 318.
On the BBC and the UWC strike, see Robert Fisk, The Point of No Return: The strike which broke the British in Ulster (London: André Deutsch, 1975).
On the coterminity of social democracy and the ideology of nationalism, see Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain (London: Verso/New Left Books, 1977).
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© 1991 Bill Rolston
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Butler, D. (1991). Ulster Unionism and British Broadcasting Journalism, 1924–89. In: Rolston, B. (eds) The Media and Northern Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11277-7_5
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