Northern Ireland, the BBC, andCensorship in Thatcher’s Britain

Robert J. Savage

Focusing on the British broadcast media’s coverage of the conflict in Northern Ireland throughout the 1980s, beginning with the Hunger Strike in 1981, Savage explores the “incessant wrangling between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government and an aggressive broadcast media determined to provide objective news and information about the complexities of ‘the Troubles’ to regional, national, and international audiences.” He details the effects of Thatcher’s “draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act” that sought to punish journalists for telling the truth, and the more insidious broadcasting ban that lasted for six years, effectively “silencing the voices of Irish republicans while tarnishing the reputation of the United Kingdom as a leading global democracy.”
Oxford University Press / 2022