Irish Times
Thu, Apr 14, 2022
The backlash against Thatcher’s broadcast ban on Sinn Féin
The imposition of formal state censorship provoked protest at home and
abroad
Robert Savage
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-backlash-against-thatcher-s-bro
adcast-ban-on-sinn-f%C3%A9in-1.4850127
Tiny Url
https://tinyurl.com/bdz44my7
John Tusa was not a happy man. As managing director of the BBC World
Service, in October 1988 he toured east Africa promoting the work of
Britain’s prized broadcasting service that boasted an international audience
of over 120 million.
Tusa aimed to highlight the success of the World Service in providing
unbiased news and information to a continent troubled by authoritarian
governments controlling their nation’s media. Just as his visit began the
British government announced what he and his colleagues had long dreaded,
the introduction of formal censorship of the broadcast media.
Although the order banned any organization that supported violence, the
Thatcher government’s primary target was Sinn Féin, the voice of Irish
republicans and, many would argue, the IRA. The broadcasting ban was
strongly influenced by the Irish State’s long-established policy of
prohibiting Sinn Féin from both radio and television.
As the director made his way through east Africa he abruptly found himself
in radically changed circumstances. At a reception in Kampala, Tusa
encountered the Ugandan deputy minister for information and broadcasting,
Maumbe Mukwana, who accused the World Service of blatant hypocrisy. The
minister complained that the BBC had banned Irish subversives from the
airwaves while continuing to permit Ugandan rebels’ access to the World
Service...
... The ease with which censorship became part of the political and
broadcasting culture of the United Kingdom and Ireland is a lesson in the
fragility of democracy. Today independent but often times vulnerable, public
service broadcasters operate in a contested and deeply fractured media
landscape. Although news is gathered and disseminated through a complex
network of social media channels, many citizens continue to rely on
television and radio for vital news and information. This underscores why a
free and independent broadcast media remains an indispensable component of
any truly democratic society.
Robert Savage directs the Boston College Irish Studies Program and is a
professor in the university’s History Department. His new book, The BBC,
Northern Ireland and Censorship in Thatcher’s Britain has just been
published by Oxford University Press
PS
From P.O'S.
I note that LinkedIn now takes any long URL - like that Irish Times one
above - and automatically turns it into the Linkedin equivalent of a Tiny
Url. I wonder if Jiscmail has considered something like that?
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the BBC-HISTORY list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=BBC-HISTORY&A=1
This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/BBC-HISTORY, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/
|