On the other hand, British radio news was slower to evolve than American broadcast journalism. Elegance and journalistic edge through microphone reporting did not emerge so quickly as in the U.S. because of the hostility of the established newspaper media, which successfully lobbied the government to restrict early British radio news to operate as a mere replica­ of news agency copy. Radio news transmissions were restricted to other than peak listening periods to avoid competition with either morning or evening newspapers. Because it depended on Parliament for its royal charter to be renewed, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was also limited by its perceived need to avoid political controversy and maintain a neutral stance. The lack of competition between public and private broadcasters·(until 1955 for television, and 1973 for radio) may well have been an additional reason for the slow development of radio news.

     Given this historical situation, the selection of journalists made in this entry is based primarily on the contributions they made in originating and developing radio journalistic practice. Attention is also paid to the social, cultural, and political impact of their journalism. Evaluation of the importance of an individual radio journalist is partially determined by peer recognition as well as whether his or her work has been seriously analyzed by either academic or professional critics.

     Apart from the multi-volume BBC history by Lord Asa Briggs (1961-95), A Social History of British Broadcasting by Scannell and Cardiff (1991), and several autobiographies and biographies of major broadcasting figures, there is little published information on the subject. In addition to reporters, editorial figures that advanced the form and content of radio journalism also merit consideration. Apart from significant reporters such as Richard Dimbleby and Audrey Russell, important news editors included R.T. Clark, William Hardcas­tle, and Isa Benzie. Radio journalism has also been present in some dramatic programs. For example, the 1931 feature Crisis in Spain used actors and story-telling techniques. Produced and written by Lance Sieveking and Archie Harding, the drama was journalistic in both its approach and its impact on political and public opinion.

Founders and Pioneers

     Apart from some early experiments sponsored by the Daily Mail, the first significant official, licensed news broadcast was broadcast by the then-private British Broadcasting Company on 14 November 1922. Presented by the first director of programs, Arthur Burrows, the bulletin was based on news agency copy and was somewhat self-consciously read twice to give listeners the chance to make notes. Scannell and Cardiff credit Burrows with establishing general BBC principles of taste and editorial policy on the basis of letters he wrote to Reuters that sought to distinguish a different "social-psychology of reception" on the part of listeners compared with newspaper readers. He argued that BBC news copy from agencies should eliminate those crimes and tragedies that did not have national and international importance. In perhaps the first indication of sensitivity to racial representation, he also held there was no need to mention the Jewish origin of people in the news.

     During the British general strike of 1926, the absence of most newspapers led to the broadcasting of news bulletins throughout the day. Some BBC staff began their own independent "news gathering." The BBC's managing director, John Reith, helped to establish radio's journalistic role as a newscaster. His was the voice that announced the inception of the strike by interrupting normal programming-and also announced its end. Although Reith believed that the BBC should aspire to be a neutral integrator, in reality BBC coverage was biased on the government side and Reith conceded that the Corporation was "for the government in the crisis." Cautious judgment in news selection was demonstrated on 12 May 1926 while Reith was reading the 1 P.M. news and Stuart Hibberd crept into the studio with agency tape announcing the end of the strike. On it Reith scribbled, "Get this confirmed from No. 10 [Downing Street]." He also lobbied hard for an end of a statutory BBC ban concerning the broadcast of "matters of controversy." The BBC had been censored by a minister called the Postmaster General who prevented the broadcasting of matters of political, industrial, or religious controversy. The campaign by Reith succeeded when the ban was suspended in 1928 as an experiment. The policy of leaving this to the discretion of the director-general and the governors eventually became an established convention that made the broadcasting of political news possible.

Although not a journalist by training, Hilda Matheson established a small independent "News Section" in 192.7 while she was Head of Talks. She also commissioned a former newspaper journalist, Philip Macer-Wright, to carry out a feasibility study on whether the BBC could become a major provider of news. Macer-Wright's report, produced in 192.8, advocated accredited journalistic experts on finance, sports, law, and science. To make an independent BBC news service attractive he also urged human-interest news that was simply and attractively conveyed. He set out the idea of "radio news values" with a consecutive flow of home, overseas, and sports news. He agreed with Matheson that the news needed to be written specifically for listeners' ears as opposed to merely using stories written for newspaper readers.

Crises of the 1930s

     Events of the 1930s were significant in the development of news form, content, and style. Reith negotiated the BBC's gradual development of its own independent news gathering as well as more flexibility in providing a greater number of radio news broadcasts. In so doing, Reith gradually eased the BBC into a position whereby it could readily report both domestic and international news stories. He accomplished this, however, by what today would be regarded as fatally compromising BBC journalistic integrity. If an unemployment march was reported, for example, he would assure the government that only its statements would be broadcast. The concept of journalistic independence and "integrity" had yet to evolve. There was no room for journalism of conviction. News content followed the conventions of the established news agencies. Political events had to represent a balance of mainstream opinion. Journalists who overstepped the mark into editorializing would be criticized and find that their contracts would not be renewed.

     By 1933 Vernon Bartlett was operating as the BBC's first foreign correspondent. Following German withdrawal from a League of Nations Disarmament conference, he broadcast an analysis arguing that the German decision flowed from the injustices of the Versailles Treaty. This was condemned as editorializing. As Scannell and Cardiff state, "The BBC quietly dispensed with Bartlett's services, and he was not asked to talk again for several years."

     In 1930 John Watt, a producer in the Talks Department, originated the idea of a newsreel program that would include commentary and dramatization of news events. Lionel Fielden produced such a program in 1933. Two years later the first separate News Department was established under the editorship of John Coatman. He recruited such journalists as Ken­ neth Adam, R.T. Clark, Michael Balkwill, Ralph Murray, Tony Wigan, Richard Dimbleby, Charles Gardner, and David Howarth. R.T. Clark succeeded Coatman in 1937, though on taking a firm stand against political pressure about how the BBC was covering the Spanish Civil War, he became involved in a row with the director-general, was dismissed, and later reinstated thanks to a successful petition by concerned BBC staff.

  Ralph Murray succeeded in covering some key stories in Europe as a BBC correspondent/observer, but the cultural and political shackles of trying to mesh with the government's appeasement policy prevented the developing news service from sending reporters to Abyssinia or Spain, or matching the on-the-spot, dramatic Columbia Broadcasting System coverage of the German Anschluss of Austria.

     Richard Dimbleby's live and unscripted reports from the French-Spanish border in 1939 were emotionally moving and an indication of progress in style. Although not acknowledged at the time, Dimbleby· demonstrated the advantages of combining emotion, verbal pictures, dramatic sound, an authoritative command of spoken English in radio journalism. His enthusiastic letter of application to the BBC, often quoted in media history publications, pays homage to American methods of radio journalism. Likewise, his telephone report from the scene of the Crystal Palace fire in 1936 was markedly superior in style and confidence to the self-conscious and halting performances of other BBC broadcasters.

     Several academics have emphasized coverage of the 1938 Munich crisis as a crucial event in BBC radio journalism. There was a relaxation of restrictive rules on bulletin timings plus a series of live remote broadcasts of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's statements from Heston airport and Downing Street in an unfolding and developing story. On the other hand, the BBC did not accord equal coverage to critical voices. Its failure to warn the country of the inevitability of war led John Coatman to write a lengthy memorandum, "The BBC and National Defence," which was highly critical of the lack of balance in news coverage and the exclusion of anti-appease­ ment voices. Coatman wrote: "I say, with a full sense of responsibility and, since I was for over three years Chief News Editor, with a certain authority, that in the past we have not played the part which our duty to the people of this country called us to play. We have, in fact, taken part in a conspiracy of silence." Winston Churchill's eloquent calls for rearmament were heard on U.S. radio networks but not over the BBC. Instead, the BBC presented a solidly governmental slant on events.

World War II

     World War II marked another turning point in the development of the technology, style, and importance of radio news. The war saw an acceleration in the use of portable technology, from cumbersome mobile recording vans to "midget" recorders, which were introduced during the D-Day invasion of June 1944.

     The pool of BBC radio journalists expanded and a number of individuals developed distinctive styles of vivid broadcasting, including the construction of word pictures in dramatic contexts. They included Frank Gillard, Audrey Russell, Edward Ward, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, Godfrey Talbot, Colin Wills, Doug Willis, Thomas Cadette, and Patrick Gor­don-Walker and correspondents such as Richard Dimbleby recruited just before the war.

     A decision by the BBC to provide greater accuracy than German or Italian broadcasters resulted in an increase in audiences for radio journalism programs, such as War Report, beyond all previous measurements. The war correspondents became a fundamental link between the home population and service people overseas. The resulting journalism was still primarily patriotic cheerleading. There was rigorous censorship of reporters (at the same time, Audrey Russell challenged­ albeit unsuccessfully-male dominance of this field and her inability to report from the front).

   Richard Dimbleby's report from the Belsen concentration camp in April 1945 carries historical significance for the poetic and humanistic quality of its writing and performance. He had to challenge an attempt to censor it from editors who feared the report was too shocking and would be disbelieved. Dim­bleby threatened resignation. Unlike Edward R. Murrow's famous report on the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Dimbleby reported that some of the inmates were Jewish and, more than other journalists, made clear the reality of the Nazi's Final Solution against European Jewry.

Postwar News

    The postwar period is something of a black hole in BBC programming history and is substantially under-researched. British radio journalism played a significant role in disseminating news of key world events from the late 1940s into the 1970s. As in World War II, some journalists, such as John Nixen during the Palestine Mandate emergency of 1949, paid with their lives. A BBC radio journalist witnessed and reported the assas­ sination of Mahatma Gandhi. James Cameron's and Rene Cut­ forth 's broadcasts during the 1950-53 Korean War were distinctive in their highlighting of the injustice of war and the suffering of civilian noncombatants. Foreign correspondents served both BBC news and current affairs programs, which retained their authority and cultural resonance even with growing competition from television. The BBC'S inflexible editorial conservatism gave way to a more relaxed style of using actual sound and informal language as modern youth culture and counterculture movements emerged amid postwar prosperity.

    The New Zealand-born head of BBC news, Tahu Hole, is held up as a symbol of conservatism and unpopular editorial judgment during the 1950s. He earned his nickname, "Hole ​​and Perfect," because he had a reputation for maintaining a policy of safety first. In an unflattering profile of Hole, the BBC Foreign Correspondent Leonard Miall said that his reign was characterized by insecure and uncertain news judgment. His fear of making mistakes led to slow and pedestrian bulletins where all items broadcast had to be supported by at least two sources. Under him, some limited progress was made recruiting women. After Audrey Russell became a freelance commentator, the BBC advertised for a trained, experienced female journalist and in 1951 Sally Holloway was selected from among nearly 400 applicants. Briggs evaluates the BBC's radio journalistic coverage of the 1956 Suez crisis as a mark of greater editorial independence and resistance to government pressure.

Postwar Competition

    Postwar expansion of television in Britain did not cause a diminution in the resources and output of BBC radio journalism. Continuity of funding and arm's length regulation of the BBC (through its royal charter and a board of governors) may account for the political and cultural stability that has led to a continuity in quality radio journalism through long­ running programs. The monopoly of BBC radio until 1973 was financed by a license fee-a compulsory taxation on owning a radio or television receiver. The separate license for radio was abolished in April 1971. Now BBC radio journalism is funded by a share-out from television license fee revenue. For over four decades the government took a diminishing cut from license fee income. Eventually all license fee income went directly to the BBC and payment was enforced through criminal prosecution. Failure to pay fines could lead to imprisonment.

     For example, From Our Own Correspondent, started in 1955, has given space to a more personal and creative expression of reporter opinions than regular BBC newscasts. A series of published volumes of correspondents' scripts from this program has given this genre of radio a literary textual value, since the scripts can be read by the listeners as a permanent record. Other news programs, such as The World At One, Today, BBC Radio 4's breakfast news and current affairs program, P.M., The World Tonight, and BBC World Service programs such as News Hour and Outlook, are also examples of longevity and continuity creating influential environments for radio reporting. The Today program was originated and editorially pioneered by women journalists including Isa Benzie, Janet Quigley, and Elisabeth Rowley.

     Andrew Boyle and William Hardcastle, former editor of the Daily Mail newspaper, originated The World At One in 1965. Many of the leading broadcast journalists of the last 40 years had associations with this program, including both Margaret Howard and Sue Macgregor.

     Some radio journalistic traditions at the BBC are linked to much earlier programs such as The Week in Westminster, which began in November 1929 and was launched by producer Marjorie Wace. Other BBC programs are characterized by the individual associated with them, such as Alistair Cooke's long-running and highly popular commentary Letter from America (begun in 1946), and Roger Cook's Checkpoint, which was a vigorous investigative program championing the victims of swindles and social injustice. Other successful formats supporting investigative radio journalism include File on Four, which nurtured the editorial talents of Helen Boaden, who was appointed BBC Radio 4 controller in 2000. 

     By 1973 the BBC found itself competing with licensed commercial radio for the first time and this generated expansion and experimentation in style, formats, and the number of radio news programs. Despite the realities of market economics, radio news from the United Kingdom's first independent station (LBC in London), as well as the independent radio news agency IRN encouraged the greater use of actuality (on-the­ spot sound) on the air and a return to greater reporter spontaneity as had been exemplified by such pioneers as Richard Dimbleby. LBC was inspired by the New York-based all-news station WINS. The more flexible programming response to crises such as the 1982 Falklands War by LBC/IRN journalists prompted the BBC to explore its own presentation of longer radio journalistic formats such as the national network Radio Five Live initiated in 1994.

     The ITN multimedia group now produces most independent British radio journalism, and a large proportion of ITN broadcasters emerged from the generation of reporters who worked at LBC/IRN during the 1970s and q98os and were engaged in a lively competition with the BBC. They include Jo Andrews, Jon Snow, Paul Davies, Mark Easton, Julian Rush, Lindsay Taylor, and Simon Israel.

     British radio journalism has been slow to represent the changing nature of the communities it serves. Early black and ethnic programming tended to be ghettoized in terms of token programs for blacks and Asians. Only Choice FM and Sunrise in London and the BBC's Asian Network, based in the Midlands, could be said to reflect the diversity and depth of coverage evident in the ethnic press. The craft of radio journalism has been an entry point for iconic figures in British broadcasting such as the ITN newscaster Trevor MacDonald, but at the time of writing, Britain's nonwhite communities were substantially underrepresented in radio news.

     British radio journalism is a continuing story without a conclusion. The ability of radio news to spawn individual reporting and writing that has profound cultural resonance is demonstrated by the work of BBC journalist Fergal Keane, whose published volume of foreign correspondent dispatches, Letter to Daniel, was an international bestseller. Editorial figures such as Jenny Abramsky have brought about significant changes in the way British radio journalism is consumed and communicated. Abramsky presided over the launch of the national news and sports channel Radio Five Live, the launch of the global television channel BBC News 24, and as Director of Radio and Music has unraveled the subjugation of radio news from bi-media fusion.

     Extensive use of the internet by both the BBC and ITN has extended the social and cultural reach of the radio medium. Digitalization has both accelerated and expanded the transmission of radio news programs. Radio journalists now work in an inter-media environment and are more engaged with their listeners within a global medium that has greater speed and distribution than ever before.

     In 2003 the BBC's Head of Radio Jenny Abramsky asserted that "Radio paints pictures, conveys images, gets inside your head, stimulating your imagination. And it takes time to acquire those skills. And great radio reporting uses sound to convey the sense of place." She set about dismantling the bi­ media production culture in 2000 because "put simply radio is about painting pictures, television is about shooting them." It can be argued that as a result BBC Radio 4's breakfast news and current affairs Today program now has more listeners than any radio format in Greater London. The political and cultural importance of BBC radio journalism was exemplified in 1989 when the new U.S. Ambassador to London Henry Catto was advised: "In the States the most important program you must appear on is on television, in Britain it's on radio."