Oppose censorship

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Journalists in Northern Ireland are entertained to lunch and drinks and may be fed the occasional scoop if they behave. And if they don't behave they can quickly find themselves the subject of Army non-cooperation.

The pressures which operate on the individual journalist do not stop at the point of information gathering.

They extend into the areas of policy guidelines and forward into the editorial process to which material is subject before publication or transmission.

The situation that exists within TV is the more extensively documented. Some programmes have been. banned, others postponed before screening and others postponed and then not shown because they had become out of date.

Still others have been shown only after significant editing has taken place. Editorial censorship has repercussions beyond the specific instance of its application, becoming a component part of the environment in which the journalist works.

The threat of censorship. the ideological pressures of training, the codes and guides, the restrictions of the law, not to mention 'career' pressures in a highly competitive field, all serve to encourage a kind of 'self censorship' which saves the authorities the embarrassment of having to intervene too often.

The patterns of ownership and control in the media ensure that this situation continues.

It is true that, for instance, the broadcasting authorities have their " differences with government at times, but these differences are never so wide as to admit programmes highly critical of government strategy in Northern Ireland.

One interesting dimension to these patterns of control as regards Irish news is the criteria operated by both the IBA and the BBC that any prógramme must be suitable for screening throughout the entire network. This is a requirement adopted at the beginning of the seventies after both BBC Northern Ireland and Ulster TV had opted out on certain programmes.

The effect of this policy is to give a certain measure of control over coverage of Ireland to the broadcasting authorities Northem re anci establishment.

The comments in the above two paragraphs deal with processes internal to the broadcasting industry. These are, however, inextricably bound up with external pressure exerted by government and the security The programme, A Question of Ulster (1971) has gone down in BBC mythology as an example par excellence of media freedom over the Irish issue. The BBC screened the programme after they had successfully resisted what is probably the most sustained attempt ever made by government in this country to keep a programme off the air.

In reality this was something of a pyrrhic victory. Since 1971 the media chiefs have drawn their horns in more and more under the pressure of external criticism.

I will give some examples. With the arrival of Roy Mason in office and the introduction of a policy of 'normalisation' skirmishes between programme makers and the authorities became more frequent; a direct response to external forces.

This Week was one programme that suffered particularly badly because it had'a certain reputation for critical coverage of Northern Ireland.

The clashes began with In Friendship and Forgiveness (August 1977). Next came Life Behind the Wire (Sept. 1977).

A few days after the programme was screened, Desmond Irvine, Secretary of the Northern Ireland Prison Officers Association who appears in the film, was shot dead. There was no obvious connection between the two events but Mason amongst others drew one.

Then came Inhuman and Degrading Trecitment (October 1977) which examined allegations of torture in Castlereagh.

In the light of the Irvine killing condemnation of This Week was stepped up. The Northern Ireland Office and the RUC refused to be interviewed and police chief Newman put the RUC on red alert claiming that lives were being put in danger by the programme.

Mason condemned it in the Commons as irresponsible and insensitive'. • Eight months later the IBA banned a film about the Amnesty report on Castlereagh. The BBC later screened excerpts from what turned out to be a very mild documentary on Nationwide.

External pressure on the BBC has followed the same pattern. Only last year Roger Bolton was sacked from his position as Editor of Panarama over the Carrickmore film.

Unsubstantiated press reports at the time claimed that a Panorama team had made arrangements to film an IRA unit in action with machine guns and rocket launchers.

Nothing of the sort happened-yet the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, told the Commons that she thought it time the BBC 'put its house in order'.

Restrictions on information, editorial policy and censorship within the media and pressure exerted from Westminster, these are what lie behind our 'high level cover up' of the war in Northern Ireland. I believe we ignore these things at our peril. The importance of the public knowing what is going on in the six counties may prove significant for our liberties in other areas.

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Demonstration in support of Derek Robinson IN BRIEF A move to stop the tide of official retreats in victimisation struggles was made last weekend as 80 trade unionists met in Birmingham to assess the outcome of the latest show-piece victimisation by Michael Edwardes and BL management-the sacking of six militants from the Longbridge plant.

Labour MP Bob Cryer and victimised London hospitals militant Conway Xavier were among the platform speakers. But the role of convenor Jack Adams and the trade union leadership was drawn out most fully by speakers from the floor of the conference.

Resolution

The following resolution spelling out the framework for an ongoing campaign in defence of trade union rights was adopted:

cathis conference recog nises that in the present economic crisis the Edwardes style of management will increasingly become the norme in British industry. We pledge ourselves to resist this development and to fight to defend shop floor rights and organisation.

With unemployment in Nuneaton now over 8,000 the Trades Council's initiative in setting up an Unemployed Workers Centre is a timely one.

The centre, which is ideally sited in the town's bus station, has been leased free of charge by the Council. The lighting and heating, however, do have to be paid for.

'The centre which so far is open on Mondays and Wednesdays has two stated purposesto give advice and to recruit Wednesday ' The bosses and the Tories are playing for increasingly high stakes; their attacks on the working class aré becoming more severe. The existing union leadership has shown itself unwilling or unable to face the challenge of this new situation. The repeated sell-outs at BLare the clearest example of this.

We aim to ensure that the lessons of recent events at BL are taken into the labour movement at every level. We need a militant rank and file movement within the trade unions; the union leadership at every level must be made accountable to the members. Leaders who show themselves unwilling to stand un to the employers offensive must be M20 a replaced.

The fight against victimisation is central to the fight to defend trade unionism itself and to the fight against unemployment.

We will give our full support to all groups of workers in struggle in defence of jobs, wages and conditions.

We recognise that such struggles are increasingly not just against an individual employer but against the government itself.

This conference calls for a campaign in the trade union movement to call a halt to this process. Full support must be the unemployed into the trade unions.

Last Saturday a demonstration was held to mark the opening and 300 turned up to take part.

Sit-in action against redundancy is now underway at two small plants.

In STOCKPORT the Lightnin Mixer factory has been occupied by 230 workers since February 2, and preventing access to management.

And at the Lee Jeans factory given to any stewards or workers victimised by management. No inquiry, joint or otherwise. Immediate strike action with the full official support of the unions concerned is the only way to beat victimisation.

This conference resolves to:

1) Draw up a report of today's conference and circulate it throughout the BL plants and widely within the trade union near Greenock 240 women members of the NUTGW have been in occupation for ten days against a closure threat.

LONGWORTH hospital work-in • supporter Anne Marie Sweeney was bureaucratically obstructed from taking a collection for the campaign outside a S.E. Region TUC Conference on Working Women in the 1980s' last weekend.

Her speech from the floor had been warmly received by the capacity audience of 500 movement.

2) To draw up petition sheets and send petitions into the two unions involved concerning the actions of those unions in relationship to the victimisations and the inquiry.

3) Io organise a series of local meetings to be addressed by the victimised workers in order to publicise this campaign." delegates. But SERTUC Secretary Jack: Dromey had refused to allow an extended contribution. and declared himself opposed to focussing discussion on particular struggles-such as Longworth and BPC-in which women workers are fighting for their rights:

As she attempted to collect money for the official COHSE dispute at the end, Dromey told her to "get out" and accused her of trying to "wreck" the conference. She completed a £48 collection outside on the steps.

SERTUC, of course, has done, nothing whatever to support the Longworth work-in.

On Saturday the 1,000 Ansells brewery workers voted unanimously to continue their strike.

This despite the fact that the owners, part Allied Breweries, have declared they are closing down and will offer only 400 jobs at depots.

The capitalist press has tried to say that here was a group of workers who brought their problems on themselves.

The reality is that their struggle has been similar to many other workers. They have been up against an all-out attack on working conditions and jobs by the employers trying to make the workers pay for their crisis.

Last year the unions in the plant even agreed to go along with a joint inquiry into the manning in the plant and to accept job cuts where the company found overmanning. This led to the loss of 44 jobs.

This was not enough for management. In January the company suspended the guaranteed week and put the workers on a four-day week. But they wanted to pick who was laid off and when.

The workforce resisted this by all taking Mondays off. The company then laid off the workforce, who met and said they would not return until the four-day week was withdrawn.

When this took place they said they would return. But the company only agreed to restore S-day working if they accepted a new ultimatum-involving 96 redundancies, a change in working practices and management's right to introduce contractors when they wanted.

The workers rejected this with only three in favour of acceptance.

The company then tried to get individuals to sign a new contract: only 28 did.

The company then sacked the whole workforce and tried to recruit from the dole. This was completely unsuccessful.

There are many important issues in this struggle, not least of which is the fight against closure. Management are using the dispute as a pretext to close down surplus capacity.

To fight this it is necessary to occupy the plant and to picket the brewer's distribution points and the pubs themselves to stop alternative supplies.

The TGWU, with a closed shop agreement with management, has the power to stop this attack. But this can only be done through effective secondary picketing, ignoring the legal limit of six pickets on a line and defying Prior's anti-union laws.

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