LET'S CELEBRATE SOME GOOD FRIDAY DISAGREEMENT
BBC NI confirmed yesterday that no further programmes have been recommissioned "at this stage" and declined to comment further. The Nolan Show debate show, however, will return on the BBC next month. The presenter has faced criticism in recent weeks over a perceived lack of balance on his Radio Ulster morning programme, The Nolan Show.
OPINION PIECE
"If people have complaints, they should not be about the man, but the machine behind the him"
TOM COLLINS (published in the column below).
The SDLP's Matthew O'Toole questioned the "level of prominence consistently given to a small section of hardline voices". He questioned the amount of airtime given to several contributors including TUV leader Jim Allister and loyalist activist Jamie Bryson. However, Mr Nolan accused Mr O'Toole of "jumping on a bandwagon that want[s] to censor certain voices - you are inferring he [Mr Bryson] should not be on as much as [he] is".
A BBC spokesman previously said: "We provide BBC listeners with opportunities for encounter, critical engagement and debate. This will sometimes involve issues and views that are contested."
BBC NI RISKS LOSING ITS PUBLIC SERVICE ETHOS
FOR as long as he has been broadcasting, Stephen Nolan has been raising people's blood pressure. He is a classic tabloid journalist, a controversial - he has an eye for a good story, an ability to interrogate, and he knows how to entertain. That's why he's paid ( a bloody fortune) the big bucks. In any discussion about the Nolan phenomenon, it's important to differentiate between Nolan the Man, and Nolan the media brand. The former is a jobbing journalist, trying to earn a crust (well, quite a lot of crust).
Nolan the Man has conducted some of the most moving radio interviews I've heard. The fine details are lost to my memory now, but I remember still the impact of an interview more than a decade ago about suicide.
Nolan the Brand, however, is a BBC construct - in the same way as Strictly Come Dancing is a brand, or Masterchief, or Homes Under the Hammer. Brand Nolan is not an individual, but the team around him, a team which stretches up to the BBC's editor-in-chief, Director General Tim Davies.
If people have complaints, they should not be about the man, but the machine behind him. And it is a machine - paid for by you and me. And the machine has a lot to answer for. Tabloid journalism is often concerned about making a splash regardless of the consequences. More heat than light.
It can be addictive, and BBC *orthern Ireland is hooked on the addiction; and it is in denial about the consequences for the society it serves.
You only have to scroll through Twitter to see that Brand Nolan has an innate ability to get under people's skin. I confess I worry about the health of commentator Tim McKane who has made it his life's mission to call Brand Nolan and the BBC to account.
Mr Kane is not alone in having concerns about the BBC's approach.
Witnesses the cavalier treatment of the Green Party, with twice as many seats as Allister's TUV (okay two) in the last assembly, and which is now having to fight to put its message across to the electorate on the BBC.
The corporation has form. When Brexit's history is written, some of the blame will be laid at its door. Without question Nigel Farage was feted by broadcasters who relied on him for the type of knockabout that increases ratings.
The BBC - and BBC *orthern Ireland in particular - is often the target of criticism, some justified. We live in an increasingly polarised world, the stakes are high, and time on air is coveted.
But it's not good enough for the BBC to claim that it must be doing something right because it is attacked from all sides. That is too simplistic.
It's response to criticism is to (Nolan has a show called this also) stonewall. The lack of transparency over the airtime given to interviewees is incomprehensible. And in the case of BBC *orthern Ireland it is unacceptable.
As the Social Change Initiative demonstrated this week, the BBC, with vast resources (it spends close to £100m a year in *orthern Ireland) has become the dominant media voice, at the expense of newspapers, commercial broadcasters and producers of online content.
It is an enormous whale in a very small pond - and what it does has a disproportionate effect on society here.
What might be seen as politicial knockabout elsewhere, can have a deeply destabilising impact on a society as divided as this one.
In essence, we have a publicly-funded media organisation, using its near monopoly position against competitors (of which, in the interests of transparency, this paper is one).
The Protocol originated from the problems of a hard Brexit being forced on both communities in *orthern Ireland. The DUP holds full responsibility for pushing that hard Brexit through. We all had to accept and live with Brexit against our wishes. Now unionism must learn to live with and accept the protocol.
That's bad enough, but it fails to address the legitimate concerns of its critics, it risks becoming one of the corrosive influences undermining peace on these Islands and rendering itself unfit for purpose as a public service broadcaster.
Let Allister and Bryson have their 15 minutes of fame. But not at the expense of other voices who may not be good box office, but who have something constructive to say.
The BBC's motto is 'Nation shall speak peace unto nation'; in *orthern Ireland there is a perception it is in a bubble speaking only to itself.
With many thanks to: The Irish News and Tom Collins (Irish News) for the original publication.
TELEVISION BROADCASTING especially BBCNI stands accused today of giving 'disproportionate airtime' to extreme fringes of loyalism on one of it's most popular talk shows and has been doing so for quite some (over two years) time now.
. .. END SECTARIANISM
The Irish Times reported on Saturday the following headlines 'The Nolan Show dominates the North's airwaves but is it hard-hitting or just hardline'?
Critics say that the amount of airtime given by Stephen Nolan to some Unionist/loyalist extrimests stairs division.
Back in March the SDLP's Matthew O'Toole hit out at The Nolan Show himself and stated: 'Prominence was given to a small section of hardline voices' on the show.
The calls seem to be getting louder and louder week on week and it seem that BBCNI are not 'addressing the elephant in the room' and seem to prefer brushing it under the carpet.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Then we have the new recent campaign set up by the 'pound shop lawyer Jamie Bryson, claiming media censorship over loyalist and unionist media coverage of the ongoing anti-Protocol and anti-Good-Friday-Agreement rallies.
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