THE MEDIA AND NORTHERN Also by Bill Rolston

A SOCIAL SCIENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF (with Mike Tomlinson, Liam O'Dowd, Bob Miller and Jim Smyth) BELFAST IN THE THIRTIES: An Oral History (with Ronnie Munck) NORTHERN IRELAND: Between Civil Rights and Civil War (with Liam O'Dowd and Mike Tomlinson) POLITICS AND PAINTING: Murals and Conflict in Northern Ireland UNEMPLOYMENT IN WEST BELFAST: The Obair Report (with Mike Tomlinson) The Media and Northern Ireland

Covering

Edited by Bill Rolston Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Ulster

M MACMILLAN © Bil l Rolsto n 199 1 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 199 1 978-0-333-51575- 4

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British Librar y Cataloguin g i n Publicatio n Dat a The Medi a an d Norther n Ireland : coverin g th e troubles . 1. Norther n Ireland . Violence . Reportin g by new s medi a I. Rolston , Bill , 1946- 070.4493036209416 ISBN 978-1-349-11279-1 ISB N 978-1-349-11277-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-11277-7 Contents

List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgements vii

List of Abbreviations Vlll

Notes on the Contributors X Introduction 1 1 Closing Down the Airwaves: the Story of the Broadcasting Ban Ed Moloney 8 2 The Silence in Irish Broadcasting Betty Purcell 51 3 The Media on the Rock: the Media and the Gibraltar Killings David Miller 69 4 Ulster Unionism and British Broadcasting Journalism, 1924--89 David Butler 99 5 Toeing the Line: Why the American Press Fails kTh~ru lll 6 In Search of Hope: Coverage of the Northern Conflict in the Daily Papers Brian Trench 136 7 News Fit to Print: Belfast's Daily Newspapers Bill Rolston 152 8 Photographs at War Trisha Ziff 187 9 At the Edges of the Picture: the Media, Women and the War in the North Nell McCafferty 207 Index 215

v List of Illustrations

1 Wedding Day, British army raid 188 2 Wedding Day, after the raid 189 3 Front page, Daily Mirror, 17 March 1988 193 4 Images of violence, Daily Mirror, 17 March 1988 194 5 The invisible border, South Armagh 196 6 Rural bliss and the absent North 197 7 Picturing the unseen, Derry 201 8 Army intelligence photographer, West Belfast 203

vi Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Fionnuala O'Connor and Leslie VanSlyke, two journalists whose help, encouragement and contacts proved im- mensely useful in the early stages of editing this book. Thanks also to Robert Bell from the Linen Hall Library in Belfast for tracing some obscure publications, and to Tony Feenan of the University of Ulster at Jordanstown for photographic assistance. A number of journalists from the three Belfast daily papers provided invaluable information without which my own chapter in this collec- tion would have been much more difficult to write. Mike Tomlinson read a draft of that chapter and made a number of very useful critical comments. Some people would have liked to write chapters for the book but were unable to produce them due to circumstances beyond their control. My thanks are due to them for their willingness to try. Anna Eggert, despite the pressures of her own work, has been characteristically enthusiastic about and supportive of mine. To her, above all, thanks. Finally, I would like to put on record my appreciation of the cooperation given to me by the contributors to this book. If contribu- tors were always so reliable and helpful the task of editing would not be the nightmare it is often made out to be.

Belfast BILL ROLSTON

VII List of Abbreviations

ACE Action for Community Employment ACTI Association of Cinematograph and Television Technicians AIDS Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BETA Broadcasting and Entertainment Trades Alliance C4 Channel4 DCI Detective Chief Inspector DUP Democratic Unionist Party FoC Father of Chapel GOC General Officer Commanding INLA Irish National Liberation Army IRA Irish Republican Army IRN Independent Radio News IRSP Irish Republican Socialist Party ITA Independent Television Authority ITN Independent Television News lTV Independent Television LRA Labour Relations Agency MIS Military intelligence MoC Mother of Chapel MoD Ministry of Defence MP Member of Parliament NGA National Graphical Association NHS National Health Service NI Northern Ireland NICRA Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association NILP Northern Ireland Labour Party NIO Northern Ireland Office NUJ National Union of Journalists oc Officer Commanding PA Press Association PR public relations PTA Prevention of Terrorism Act RAC Relatives Action Committee RTE Radio Telefis Eireann RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary SAS Special Air Services

Vlll List of Abbreviations IX

SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party SDP Social Democratic Party TD Taoiseach Dail (member of parliament in South) TRN Thomson Regional Newspapers TV Television UDA Ulster Defence Association UDR Ulster Defence Regiment UK United Kingdom us United States UTV Ulster Television UVF uwc Ulster Workers' Council Notes on the Contributors

David Butler is a lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. He has completed a D.Phil titled: 'The Representation of Northern Ireland and the Crisis in British Broadcasting.'

Nell McCafferty, born in Derry, currently works as a freelance journalist and writer in Dublin. She is the author of numerous books, many of which have been bestsellers, including The Best of Nell (Dublin: Attic Press, 1983), A Woman to Blame: the Kerry Babies Case (Dublin: Attic Press, 1985), Goodnight Sisters: Selected Writings, vol. 2 (Dublin: Attic Press, 1987) and Peggy Deery: a Derry Family at War (Dublin: Attic Press, 1988).

David Miller is a researcher with the Glasgow University Media Group. His current research interests are the government informa- tion service, British overseas representation and the analysis of audience belief in relation to television news.

Ed Moloney has been assistant editor of the now-defunct Dublin based weekly Hibernia and northern editor of . Currently he is northern correspondent of the Sunday Tribune. He is also the co-author (with Andy Pollak) of Paisley (Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 1986).

Betty Purcell is a Senior Producer with RTE Radio's Current Affairs Department. She has produced all the major programmes in that area - such as the Pat Kenny Show, , Day by Day - as well as producing an access series called Talkback, for which she received a Jacobs broadcasting award. She has written a book about her time as a correspondent in Nicaragua, called Light After Darkness: an Experience of Nicaragua (Dublin: Attic Press, 1989). She is a member of the General Executive Committee of the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland and is currently taking a case against the Irish government to the European Court about the Section 31 broadcasting ban.

Bill Rolston is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Ulster. He is co-author of a number of books, including Northern

X_ Notes on the Contributors XI

Ireland: Between Civil Rights and Civil War (London: CSE Books, 1980), Belfast in the Thirties: an Oral History (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1987) and Unemployment in West Belfast: the Obair Report (Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, 1988). He is also the author of a forthcoming book Politics and Painting: Murals and Conflict in Northern Ireland.

Jo Thomas worked for the Cincinnati Post and Times-Star and the Detroit Free Press before joining the Washington bureau of the New York Times in 1977. From 1977 to 1982 she was chief of the paper's Miami-Caribbean bureau. She was the first reporter to discover the Contras training illegally in the Florida Everglades before their invasion of Nicaragua. From 1982 to 1984 she was assistant national editor of the New York Times. During the mid-1980s she worked in the London Office of the paper, from where she also covered Northern Ireland. She is currently an associate professor of journal- ism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brian Trench is a Dublin-based freelance journalist, currently (1989) on contract to the Sunday Tribune, providing support on computer- ised editorial systems and editing the Innovations section. He is also a contributor to several British and Irish publications and one of RTE Radio 1's regular reviewers of the morning papers. He has held positions as deputy editor, Hibernia magazine, news editor, Sunday Tribune, and editor, magazine, and was a foreign correspon- dent in Spain and Portugal in 1980-1. From 1985 to 1988, he was a part-time lecturer in journalism at Dublin City University (formerly National Institute for Higher Education).

Trisha Ziff is a freelance writer and editor of photography. She lived in Derry from 1982 to 1986 where she worked with a group of young photographers in Derry Camerawork. On her return to London she became the Director of Network Photographers for four years. She has edited a book of images from the North of Ireland, Still War (Bellew Publishing, 1989). She is now living and working in Mexico.