World in Action - World in Action and Popular Culture

World in Action and Popular Culture

One of the programme's hallmarks was its willingness to embrace popular culture, at a time when its competitors preferred a more highbrow approach. One of the very earliest editions reported on overspending at the Ministry of Defence in the style of a contemporary gameshow, Beat The Clock. The programme was so controversial it was banned from being shown on ITV by the then regulatory body, the Independent Television Authority (ITA); instead, ten minutes of it were shown on the BBC as an act of journalistic solidarity. The gameshow device re-emerged in 1989, when an academic study of the uptake of tax-funded benefits by the middle-class was transformed into a mock quiz show named Spongers, fronted by a well-known star of game formats, Nicholas Parsons.

Popular music played a significant role in WIA's history. An early edition, in 1966, carried a fly-on-the-wall account of daily life aboard one of the then pirate radio ships, Radio Caroline, at a time when the British Government was determined to preserve the radio monopoly of the BBC by driving the "pirates" off the air.

In 1967, a young researcher named John Birt established his early reputation by persuading the rock star Mick Jagger to appear on World in Action to debate youth culture and his recent drug conviction, with Establishment figures, including William Rees-Mogg of The Times, who had written a famous editorial defending the singer. Jagger so enjoyed the experience that he invited the Granada team to film The Rolling Stones at the band's free 1969 concert in Hyde Park, London. The resulting film, The Stones In The Park, was one of the iconic concert films of the 1960s. John Birt rapidly moved on to edit World in Action and eventually run the BBC as its Director-General.

The rise of Thatcherism and the misery of mass unemployment saw WIA examining the phenomenon through the eyes of another emerging band, UB40, in A Statistic, A Reminder (1981), a line taken from one of the band's songs. Six years later, a special edition of the programme was devoted to the Irish rock band U2 and their charismatic front man Bono. Like The Rolling Stones before them, U2 allowed World in Action to film one of their classic concerts in 1987 in Ireland. This footage, shot by the future Hollywood director Paul Greengrass, was shown only once on ITV because of copyright restrictions, although it circulated among fans of the band as a bootleg. A small section of the film was posted on YouTube in 2006 . The full documentary was made available on the itv.com website in 2008 .

In 1983, Stevie Wonder, at the height of his popularity, gave the programme a musical exclusive when he agreed to let a World in Action crew record him performing an unreleased song, written to help the Democratic politician Jesse Jackson's electioneering, for The Race Against Reagan. Another popular singer, Sting, appeared in a more critical World in Action episode, which questioned the effectiveness of his Rainforest Foundation.. In August 1980 the series devoted an edition to the story behind chart rigging - an ongoing practice where record companies were bribing the British chart compilers to put certain artists' singles higher in the charts than they actually were. Singles mentioned on the programme included several UK number one hits of the previous twelve months.

Perhaps the most bruising encounter between WIA and popular entertainment was the 1995 film Black and Blue which featured a covert recording of a performance by the veteran comedian Bernard Manning as the star of a charity function organised by the Manchester branch of the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers. Manning's racist and homophobic performance, loudly applauded by those present, caused outrage when WIA broadcast excerpts, sparking an intense debate about the willingness of British police officers to embrace a diverse culture.