LESLEY HENDERSON \ DAVID MILLER \ JAQUELINE REILLY HEARD THE NEWS? BANNING BROADCASTING SOUND Northern Ireland has provided Ihe means by which the professional broadcasters have steadily been brought to rhe government's heel. Professor Rex Cathcart Historian of the BBC in Northern Ireland It is now over two years since Douglas Hurd, the then Home Secretary, introduced a notice banning the broadcast of sound of interviews with eleven Irish organisations including illegal ones such as the Irish Republican Anny (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (lNLA), as well as legal organisations such as Sinn Fein and the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association. When he announced the ban he claimed: 'This is not a restriction on reporting' (Hansard 19 October 1988, 893). Our research shows that whatever the intentions of the notice, this has not been the case. In fact Sinn Fein interviews or reports of interviews on British TV news have been severely restricted. The notice, introduced on 19 October 1988 under section 29(3) of the Broadcasting Act 1981 and Clause 13(4) of the BBC Licence and Agreement, prohibits the broadcasting of: any words spoken whether in the course of an interview or discussion or otherwise, by a person who appears or is heard on the programme in which the mailer is broadcast where - (a) the person speaking the words represents or purports to represent an organisation specified in paragraph 2 below, 01 (b) the words support or solicit or invite support for such an organisation. What this meant in practice was left to the broadcasters 10 decide. No60- May t99t Confusing Guidance Journalists reacted to the ban with confusion; guidelines were hurriedly drawn up and then revised following a leiter from the Home Office which indicated that reported speech fell outside the prohibition. This meant thai il was acceptable to quote a listed organisation or a speaker supporting a listed organisation as long as the originator of the words was not heard speaking them, A second confusion was whether a member of a listed organisation could be held to 'represent' that organisation 24 hours a day. The Home Office letter argued that this was too narrow an interpretation, and maintained that 'a member of an organisation cannot be held to represent that organisation in all his daily activities'. So the crucial issue if we want to hear a Sinn Fein representative is in which capacity they appear. The BBC made use of this definition of 'represent' for the firsl time on 16 Febuary 1989 when they interviewed Gerry Adams about jobs in West Belfast. Thirty seconds of sound on film was broadcast in Northern Ireland, with Adams speaking as MP for West Belfast rather than Sinn Fein MP for West Belfast. The Home Office showed it was keeping an eye on things when it phoned the BBC in London for an explanation. The technicalities of 'representing' an organisation have meant some comments being unexpectedly allowed and others ludicrously disallowed. The Media Show broadcast comments from Sinn Fein Councillor Jim McAllister speaking, in his capacity as an actor, about his role in Ken Loach's film Hidden Agenda. In the film McAllister plays the part of ... a Sinn Fein II