I have two volumes of Robert Kee’s History of Ireland On my bookshelf. The third one loaned years ago to ….well I can’t actually remember.
Kee is not just famous for the TV series and linked book. He was also involved in campaigns treferee the Guildford Four. He was an ITN and BBC veteran. A great journalist but going with the Gang of Five (himself, Peter Jay, Anna Ford,David Frost and Angela Rippon) to GMTV exposed that he lacked the charisma for TV presentation.
Over on Slugger O’Toole, Dimbleby Walker thithat quite properly that his passing should be marked for the Slugger readership. As is often the case Dimbleby gets the “dead journalist obituary” gig…..which of course reminds me that nobody on Slugger O’Toole thought that the passing of James Kelly, 100 years old and a journalist for 82 years….shouLd be so noted. Wrong kinda journalist?
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
I thought of you when I saw the tweet about Kee’s death. His programme on Irish history was just amazing, flying in the face of the media propaganda of the day.
He was actually quite brave. A pathfinder for reporters like Peter Taylor. But the Slugger tribute is actually a reminder of how “on message” and cowardly British journalists were in the 1970s
Like the 30-40 documentary films banned by British TV Companies during the troubles.
British journalism….particularly the BBC journos revel in a myth of their own making.
I well remember witnessing events on the Falls to later see the supposedly great Kate Adie’s report which never tallied with what I saw. A typical example would be numbers at protests or republican funerals, which were always round down greatly.
In a world of Al Jazerra, Russia Today etc. the BBC merely looks like Pravda. Save for the great Channel 4, tv journalism is nothing more than reporting. There’s no better example that the piss poor, unchallenging coverage of Palestine.
Well this was the norm in the 1970s.
Martin Bell that man with the white suit denoting his integrity…was run out of West Belfast.
But actually the way journos re-write stuff is as interesting as the way they write stuff.
About a year ago Kate Adie was one of four journos who re-visited Belfast.
She told the story of how she knew little or nothing about the Catholic/nationalist grievances until her first posting when she noted that the Ormeau Avenue BBC had few Catholics in the newsroom.
It might have been more credible if she had reported that forty years previously.
I remember seeing Robert Kee’s “Ireland, a television history” when I was a nipper. I still remember it. It was like watching a favourite uncle reveal himself as a history professor. He was never patronising yet explained facts clearly and with an unbiased eye.
I was sorry to hear of his passing but he leaves behind a legacy. For me that legacy is how he made history, vibrant, interesting and relevant.
I think he was “old school”…a journalist who had an eye to History rather than Politics. My perception is that 21st century journalists have had courses in Media or Politics but fail to see a bigger picture.
That reminds me off the Fisk piece just after the Saville Report when he vigorously berated himself for his sloppy work whilst in the north.
He recounted how they would just go to the MOD briefing after an incident and report on what they were given, possibly gathering more crap from an officer over drinks in the Europa. He went onto lambast the whole press for doing similar.
But Fisk is that historian journalist personified, a man who constantly relates the historical to the contemporary, pointing out our recidivist actions and reactions, our amazing ability to believe the bullshit because extemporising and contextualising is just that little bit too much effort for most journalists and their readers.
I can’t find the exact article I was looking for yet but this is a helluva good one anyway http://www.independent.ie/national-news/robert-fisk-we-didnt-care-about-the-irish-catholics-or-protestants-2221958.html
I think Robert Fisk is too hard on himself. He always struck me as someone who was never on message and had a lot of independence. Too many journos buy into the myth of bravely reporting the Troubles.