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The British Media and Bloody Sunday

The British Media and Bloody Sunday

Greg McLaughlin | Stephen Baker

(2015)

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Book Details

Abstract

On Bloody Sunday, January 30, 1972, British paratroopers killed thirteen innocent men in Derry. It was one of the most controversial events in the history of the Northern Ireland conflict and also one of the most mediated. The horror was recorded in newspapers and photographs, on TV news and current affairs, and in film and TV drama. In a cross media analysis that spans a period of almost forty years up to the publication of the Saville Report in 2010, The British Media and Bloody Sunday identifies two countervailing impulses in media coverage of Bloody Sunday and its legacy: an urge in the press to rescue the image and reputation of the British Army versus a troubled conscience in TV current affairs and drama about what was done in Britain’s name. In so doing, it suggests a much more complex set of representations than a straightforward propaganda analysis might allow for – one that says less about the conflict in Ireland than it does about Britain, with its loss of empire and its crisis of national identity.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover FC
Half-title i
Title iii
Copyright iv
Dedication v
Contents vii
Acknowledgements ix
Foreword 1
Chapter 1: The British Media and Bloody Sunday: An introduction 7
Methods of analysis 11
Bloody Sunday in context 13
Ideology and the British national myth 16
Too close for comfort: The press in Belfast, Derry and Dublin 18
Outline 23
Notes 24
Chapter 2: The British press, Bloody Sunday and the Widgery Report 27
Part One: Reporting Bloody Sunday 30
The ‘battle’ 31
The ‘massacre’ 33
The soldiers 35
Ulstermen, Irishmen and the Wildcat girl 36
Part Two: Reporting Widgery 40
The advance briefing 41
Resolving the contradictions 44
Concluding remarks 48
Notes 48
Chapter 3: The British press and the Saville Report 51
The guilty innocent 56
The innocent guilty 58
The verdict on Saville 64
To prosecute or not to prosecute 68
Implications for the peace process? 70
After Saville: The murder inquiry 72
Concluding remarks 74
Notes 75
Chapter 4: Inside stories and secret histories: British television investigates Bloody Sunday 77
British television and the conflict in Northern Ireland 80
Analysis 83
Setting the scene 83
Providing context 86
Visualizing the shootings 87
What really happened? Evidence and eyewitness testimony 91
Closing the scene 102
Channel 4 News investigates 107
Concluding remarks 110
Notes 112
Chapter 5: Sunday and Bloody Sunday: Very British tragedies? 115
Formations 118
Bloody Sunday: A fatal collision 122
Sunday: Conflicting genres 128
Contexts: British and Irish 136
Concluding remarks 140
Notes 141
Chapter 6: The British Media and Bloody Sunday: Lest they forget 143
Notes 153
Bibliography 155
Index 163
BackCover BC