BBC
Drama shows best how much Northern Ireland has changed
Tweet The distinguished Arts commentator Mark Lawson has an interesting blog post in the Guardian pegged to the new BBC2 thriller series “The Fall,” set in Belfast and launched on Monday night. He uses it to discuss the impact of ”British ” in the BBC. He rightly observes the big change, that it’s now Scotland with its independence debate where the [...] more »
Why is the BBC ghettoising NI regional outputs?
Tweet I almost missed 14 Days, a documentary on one of several traumatic weeks in the history of the Troubles. Paul Canning, who’s based in Cambridge didn’t, and writes an impressively well researched blog asking (amongst several other things), why don’t the BBC mainstream more locally produced work? The ‘BBC NI only’ shows are (or were) all [...] more »
Shane Allen, Belfast’s latest TV mogul. Creative power house or an accident waiting to happen?
Tweet We always like to know aboout people from the old place who’ve made it, don’t we? Shane Allen is one the most influential people who comes from Northern Ireland. What is he? A politician on the rise (hah!) A journalist/writer (hah again)? A business mogul , a poet? Nope. He’s the BBC’s head of comedy [...] more »
Press comment on the BBC’s Saville crisis is off beam. Pollard transcripts reveal individual errors more than cultural flaws
Tweet Reacting to the transcripts of the Pollard report on the “crisis” within the BBC, where do I start? Best to sum up and not get bogged down. For that, go to Steve Hewlett’s video in the Independent. To be fair press comment on Pollard today is fairly mild, perhaps exhausted after covering the affair as [...] more »
Robert Kee, hero of journalism and the television history of Irish nationalism
Tweet Slugger should note the passing of Robert Kee, historian, TV and print journalist and RAF bomber pilot, who has died aged 93. In this age of revisionist debate, his TV history series first shown in 1981 and The Green Flag, the written history of Irish nationalism which accompanied it, were well timed and still stand [...] more »
The BBC has no business making a silly unionist dig at Martin McGuinness
Tweet Just a bit of New Year harrumping. I see the Bel Tel couldn’t resist joining the tease that Martin McGuinness took on an “English aristocratic title” when he had to go through the traditional form of accepting an office of profit under the Crown in order to quit as an abstensionist MP. The BBC website [...] more »
Memories of 1982, a strange year
Tweet According to what’s appeared in the papers, the archives of 1982 have produced few surprises. Perhaps Wally Kirwan’s suggestion of cross border internment put (safely) to Garret FitzGerald comes close but it was never going to happen. The two governments had allowed themselves to be pushed apart by the 1981 hunger strike and a [...] more »
“Heads must roll” is not a quick fix for the BBC or the cabinet
Tweet What’s there to trust in public life? A new Hillsborough inquiry into a dreadful police cover up of how 23 died in the same year as Finucane ; UBS in the latest bank scandal over fixing the Libor rate, amid unresolved rows about big banks and bankers’ pay. Off with all their heads? But [...] more »
“For the avoidance of doubt…”
Tweet The unsurprising, for many reasons, winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2012 may have been this year’s Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, a well-deserved third place went to Olympic and US Open tennis champion, Andy Murray. But the Guardian’s Paul Owens has spotted something strange about the BBC’s Panel awarding ‘Team of the Year’ to the [...] more »
Northern Ireland training ground for new BBC leadership
Tweet I was going to headline this: “BBC NI ex News trainee becomes Director General. ” But then nearly all the bright young things in London HQ in the 1970s were blooded (figuratively) in the Belfast newsroom at the height of the Troubles. BBC News and current Affairs was the forcing ground for familiar luminaries [...] more »
Visual Comment of the Week: Scandal and Resignation
Tweet Commentary from Aaron Callan and cartoon from Brian Spencer The past couple of weeks have witnessed the resignations at the BBC and CIA. Both these resignations have been well covered in the media. However, I believe that it represents a further undermining of the belief in our public and private institutions. We just have [...] more »
Mail names BBC NI Director as the weak link in latest crisis…
Tweet Suddenly the vast and inscrutable machine of the BBC is under intense investigation, and the hunt is on for whomever it was at Director level that signed off on the Newsnight. The Daily Mail believes it has found the weak link in the chain. The person they now claim was responsible for sign off [...] more »
Wanted: a new John Birt for the BBC
Tweet I never thought I’d write this but John Birt is the kind of figure the BBC now needs to steady the ship. In 1987 the BBC faced a similar if slower burning crisis. The DG Alasdair Milne never recovered from the row in 1985 over Real Lives: On the Edge of the Union, a [...] more »
Paisley jnr, Andrew Marr and a case of mistaken identity
Tweet Guido flashed it, so to speak. Then Quentin Letts, a graduate of TCD and therefore qualified to comment on all things Irish north and south picked it up in his sketch. Mr Paisley rose. Tall fella. He has his father’s shoulders and skull-shape and Northern Irish accent. As I say, the larynx does not [...] more »
Respect?
Tweet [click here if image doesn't show] From today’s Irish News (h/t to @Short_Strand). Doesn’t really need much more comment. Sorry to rain on anyone’s parade, but you know what us Fenian bastards are like. At least in the case of the bandsman urinating on the church gates, the Grand Secretary of the Orange Order was quick out [...] more »
Niall Ferguson on the devolution of Education to a bigger society…
Tweet This podcast of Niall Ferguson’s last Reith lecture (transcript, h/t Nev) is well worth listening to, not least because a really sharp Scottish audience which is not prepared to let him off with anything sloppy. There’s some very good stuff on de Tocqueville, and Democracy in America at the beginning plus a great line [...] more »
That’ll be twelve pounds fifty please …
Tweet After years of providing material for Thursday night and Friday morning posts on Slugger, BBC NI’s Hearts and Minds aired last night for the last time. [Ed - Not quite the last: it has one last swansong on BBC Parliament at 4pm on Sunday afternoon] While waiting for Sinn Fein’s Ard Comhairle to shake [...] more »
“Having the BBC available in the South gives us a clear link with what politicians in the North are doing.”
Tweet So opined the then Irish Minister for Communications, Eamon Ryan, in February 2010 when the Irish and UK governments signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) ”for continuing co-operation on broadcasting issues on the island of Ireland.” Specifically, on what will happen after the digital switchover in 2012 - now scheduled for Oct 24 in Ireland [...] more »
Eurovision 2012: “Good luck on your journey, Azerbaijan!”
Tweet Mark Lawson on the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Azerbaijan – “the most politicised contest yet.” [Apart from the one in 1974? - Ed] Indeed. Back to Mark Lawson. Tensions between several of the core participants had been raised by the possible exit of Greece from the stricken eurozone and, increasing the volume of [...] more »
“UK courts cannot force the handing over of journalistic material to foreign organizations…”
Tweet Just a quick note of the BBC reporting that Garda have failed in their attempt to force the BBC and UTV to hand over unbroadcast video footage of rioting in Dublin during Queen Elizabeth II’s visit last year. From the BBC report The request which was made through the Home Office failed after Senior Belfast Judge [...] more »
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Books
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Round up of Tuesday’s Political Studies Association conference
Tweet If you want to get a flavour of the proceedings at the Political Studies Association conference on its opening day, then the Storify collation below will bring you some of the images, tweets and sounds of the day. Particular highlights included: the Opening Plenary with David Blunkett, Peter Riddell and Matthew Flinders; and the [...] read our review »
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“Unionism Decayed 1997-2007″ by David Vance: book review
Tweet I initially wrote this when the book was first published three years ago; whilst certain elements of it now sound dated, its basic premise that the period of 1997-2007 was a period of irreversible decay for Northern Irish Unionism can still be argued as a valid opinion. My own feeling is that it did [...] read our review » -
Learning from 1798?: Northern Ireland’s Upcoming Decade of Commemorations
Tweet Last year, the Lilliput Press released a new extended edition of Tom Dunne’s Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize winning book, Rebellions: Memoir, Memory and 1798. First published in 2004, Dunne’s book provoked considerable controversy with its critique of the ‘commemorationist’ history that Dunne believed dominated the 1998 commemorations of the 1798 Rebellion. The book blasted the [...] read our review »
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