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The Angry Buzz: This Week and Current Affairs Television
151/Granville Williams
DATELINE: 14/5/06
Pat Holland takes the title of her new study from an evocative comment by Professor Sylvia Harvey: "We need the angry buzz of current affairs". The problem is that apart from the Dispatches strand on Channel 4 there is precious little of it around. Even the BBC’s flagship Panorama is battered, losing direction and impact.
An introductory chapter makes two important points. One is that "the life of This Week spans the decades in which broadcasting in the UK gave priority to public service principles" but the second point is that current affairs television on ITV required programme makers to think about the audience. This created conflicting pressures between commercial and non-commercial aims, between making accessible programmes and serious journalism, and so on. "At its most successful, the series was able to hold these conflicting pressures in balance and develop powerful journalism for a very broad audience" Pat Holland argues.
The Angry Buzz takes us through the various phases in This Week’s life from 1956 unti 1992. The value of the book lies in the reconstruction of This Week’s contribution to ITV current affairs programming. The chapters on Northern Ireland are a painful reminder of the pressures on broadcasters who wanted to report on the conflict. Another chapter deals with Death on the Rock. As she points out, the programme, broadcast in April 1988, "led to the biggest row of the decade and its reverberations shook the television world". The chapter gives a clear overview of the events (including the shameful role of the Murdoch press).
The Angry Buzz is excellent, written in a clear, accessible style. It deserves to be widely read and discussed because the issues the book raises remain absolutely relevant to contemporary broadcasting policy debates.
Last modified: Sunday, May 14, 2006
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World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
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The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
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The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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