Stephen Nolan

Is it a problem for the BBC when Stephen Nolan becomes the story?

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The tagline of the Stephen Nolan show is – Make the news, be the news. Unfortunately, the show’s host seems to be taking that literally. The Irish News has four pages in today’s edition covering alleged goings on at ‘the biggest show in the country’. I do not think the journalists Rodney Edwards and John Breslin will get one of Stephens’s famous Christmas cards. There are rumours there is more to come in this story. To say Nolan divides opinion …

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Twitter troll to pay Stephen Nolan six figure damages…

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A bad week for whoever was behind the Pastor Jimberoo Twitter account as Stephen Nolan just made their bank account over a 100k lighter. From the BBC report: A person who used anonymous Twitter accounts to make defamatory remarks about Stephen Nolan has apologised and agreed to pay a six-figure damages sum. The BBC radio and TV presenter traced the identity of the person who was behind an online campaign against him. In a statement issued by the person’s lawyer, …

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‘Stephen Nolan needs to find the right balance – and not make angry people angrier’

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Stephen Nolan needs to find the right balance between allowing people to express their emotions, without making angry people even angrier. The plea was made in the latest Forward Together podcast by Sinn Fein MLA and former finance minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir. “In this often divided society, I think the tone and timbre of the debate has to be respectful,” says Máirtín. “We have to find ways of not feeding the ratings monster, not sectarianising a discussion, which has huge sectarian …

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The serious business of statistics

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When something you hear makes you burst out laughing, you know it’s time to write a blog. In this case, I was listening to “the biggest show in the country” on the subject of Boris Johnson and his peddling of the myth that once Brexit is achieved there will be £350m a week available for the NHS. Indeed, Sir David Norgrove, the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority took the unprecedented step of writing to the foreign secretary to say …

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Stephen Nolan earning nearly half a million a year

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The BBC has released salary details of presenters and stars earning more than 150K. As expected Stephen Nolan is the highest locally paid presenter earning a salary of between £400,000 and £449,999 a year. Nolan is famously a workaholic: The Belfast-born broadcaster presents a number of radio and TV programmes for the BBC. He presents The Nolan Show Monday to Friday on BBC Radio Ulster, a programme on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings for BBC 5 live and Question Time: …

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The BBC and Stephen Nolan show again that they are the real opposition…

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The Cash for Ash scandal is the biggest financial blunder in the history of Northern Ireland. It has the potential to take down the first minister Arlene Foster. It is a mess of the highest order. The BBC spotlight team did an excellent job with last week’s programme on the affair. It was a forensic dissection of an easily preventable mess. Stephen Nolan then followed up the pressure by devoting the entirety of his show over the past few days …

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Fairness and Fear in the alternate universe of the Orange Order…

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I’ve heard some bizarre things on the Nolan show but the recent interview with Drew Nelson, Grand Secretary of the Orange Order, has got to be in the top five. The discussion centered round a recent Orange Order report, ‘Fairness and Fear’ that outlined the horrors Protestants face in the workplace. As an atheist I object to being called a Protestant’ but I suppose I could be termed part of the wider PUL community the Orange Order frequently claims to …

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#IrelandsCall: So similar and yet north and south continue their long slow drift apart…

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RTE/BBCNI Ireland’s Call survey 2015 from Slugger Consults Here’s an initial collation of the slides from last night’s programme, taken from what RTE and BBC NI have shared on their websites, and a couple of screenshots I took at the time. If you have any more do let me know and I will add them to a second iteration? There’s lots of yummy data in the overall survey, not least the indications just how happy everyone seems to be both …

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Smoked eggs and Currie

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On October 22nd 2014 Health Minister Jim Wells spoke at a meeting of the Committee for Health, Social Services and Public Safety and was there, as stated by Chairperson Maeve McLaughlin in her introduction, to “to give evidence on the terms of reference for the Committee’s review of the departmental approach to the Budget”. All was going swimmingly with much discussion of priorities for 2015-16, budgetary constraints, ‘Transforming Your Care’, Ebola, revenue generation, efficiencies and potential savings until THAT moment. …

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The power of Nolan – too much of a good thing?

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It was interesting to see that there was as much comment on Nolan personally as about Pastor McConnell. I don’t see or hear Nolan that often but I thought he played a pretty straight bat on this one. I’m told he divides an already divided community, not on sectarian lines but between pro- and anti- Nolan. That’s quite a tribute. I bet opinion swings quite a bit just like a Nolan interview. With Nolan we’re on a rollercoaster. Whether you …

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Cartoon – Hear Nesbitt roar!

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  <div data-boourl=”https://audioboo.fm/boos/1928083-uup-leader-mike-nesbitt-says-poots-must-go-bbcnolan/embed?eid=AQAAAKBnA1OTax0A” ><a href=”https://audioboo.fm/boos/1928083-uup-leader-mike-nesbitt-says-poots-must-go-bbcnolan”>listen to ‘UUP leader Mike Nesbitt says &quot;Poots must go&quot; #BBCNolan’ on Audioboo</a></div><script type=”text/javascript”>(function() { var po = document.createElement(“script”); po.type = “text/javascript”; po.async = true; po.src = “https://d15mj6e6qmt1na.cloudfront.net/assets/embed.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();</script> Not like we haven’t heard it before.       Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/