1988–1994 British broadcasting voice restrictions
From October 1988 to September 1994 the British government banned broadcasts of the voices of representatives from Sinn Féin and several Irish republican and loyalist groups on television and radio in the United Kingdom (UK).
This increased pressure on the British government to abandon its policy; John Major lifted the broadcast ban on 16 September 1994, a fortnight after the first Provisional Irish Republican Army ceasefire (declared on 31 August 1994).
The programme featured extensive footage of Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness and the Democratic Unionist Party's Gregory Campbell discussing the Troubles, and following direct intervention by the government it was temporarily blocked from being aired.
[3][5] Further controversy also erupted in September 1988 over an intended edition of the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark which was to have featured the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, as a guest.
[1][6] The show was dropped after the conservative academic Paul Wilkinson – a professor at Aberdeen University who specialised in the study of terrorism and political violence – voiced strong objections to its transmission.
[7][8] The ban prevented the UK news media from broadcasting the voices, though not the words, of ten Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups, as well as Sinn Féin.
[1] A group of broadcast journalists subsequently launched a legal challenge to overturn the ban, but in May 1989 the High Court decided the Home Secretary had acted lawfully.
[15] Hurd's belief was that the ban would place the print and broadcast media on a level footing, but opponents of the restrictions argued they were affecting the quality of news reporting from Northern Ireland, and consequently people's understanding of the issues.
[1][a] In 2005 John Birt, a former Director-General of the BBC, said Hurd's announcement came "right out of the blue", while Danny Morrison, who in 1988 was director of publicity for Sinn Féin, spoke of the total confusion that resulted.
[17] The BBC and its commercial counterparts compiled a list of actors who could be called upon to record voiceovers for news items and documentaries about the Troubles, often at short notice.
In December 1988 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Tom King, ordered Channel 4 to cancel an episode of the US drama series Lou Grant that featured the story of a fictional IRA gunrunner, even though it had aired previously.
[4] Mother Ireland, a 1988 documentary about women and Irish nationalism that included an interview with Mairéad Farrell, subsequently shot dead during an SAS operation in Gibraltar, was also initially banned.
[4] In November 1988 "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six" – a song by The Pogues expressing support for the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four – was subject to the regulations because it included "general disagreement with the way in which the British government responds to, and the courts deal with, the terrorist threat in the UK".
[2] In 1994, a sketch in The Day Today comedy series by Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris parodied the restrictions, with Steve Coogan impersonating a Gerry Adams-esque Sinn Féin leader, spouting rhetoric while inhaling helium to "subtract credibility from his statement".
[22][23] Thatcher's successor as Prime Minister, John Major, announced a review of the regulations in November 1993, telling the House of Commons that the general belief within the Conservative Party was that interviews with those subject to the restrictions were being stretched "to the limit and perhaps beyond".
[17][24] Conservative backbenchers and unionist MPs wanted more rigid restrictions,[3] and The Irish Times reported a "widespread feeling" that Major favoured a complete ban, but that journalists were opposed to this.
Michael Grade, who was then chief executive of Channel 4, said it had ended "one of the most embarrassing attempts to censor coverage of the most important domestic political story of post-war years", while John Birt commented, "We can once again apply normal and testing scrutiny to all sides in the debate".
[33] Francis Welch, the producer of Speak No Evil, a 2005 BBC documentary that discusses the restrictions, argued that the legislation "added pressure to the process of reporting events in Northern Ireland", while Sinn Féin's Danny Morrison believed the ban "was a weapon of war used by the government" in an attempt to silence the Republican movement.
[2] In 1994 Tony Hall, the head of the BBC's News and Current Affairs, argued that the restrictions did not allow viewers to make a proper judgment about those subject to the rules, as the subtle changes to their voices could not be heard.
Hall said Adams was nervous and defensive throughout the interview as the presenter, Sheena McDonald, argued that peace could not be achieved while the IRA continued its violent stance, but that viewers were unaware of these aspects of the discussion.
