Radio Foyle is part of the community – we must win the fight to save it

A shock for local listeners, a very worrying blow for the journalists and their families.

43 years old, the station has been with me most of my life. It has been a platform for stories and voices to get a local and extending out to a regional, national and international audience.

It has been a channel for talent to learn and sharpen its skills. In the past generation, some of the North’s and indeed the UK and Ireland’s leading journalists have spent time in the newsroom on the Northland Road.

As a contributor you certainly learnt what it was like to be fearlessly interviewed. For years I would not sleep at night knowing I was to be on the news programme the next morning. Frankly, contributing live to globally significant programmes such as Radio 4’s Today Programme, Newsnight or even Channel 4 News and CNN is a doddle when you learnt at Foyle what it was like to really get grilled.

You can’t get away with banality and platitudes, you have to say what you mean and mean what you say. You don’t get away with it as you see the team in the local shop, at community and family events. They’re able to fully reflect life in the North West because they are part of the community in the North West.

It is no surprise that the threat to those in our community who work for Foyle has been greeted with anger. Last Wednesday, I joined a couple of hundreds of other listeners at a meeting in the Guildhall hosted by the National Union of Journalists. This was quite an extraordinary gathering of collective concern and determination to stand up for some of our own and the stations which gives voice to the unique personality which exists here.

Trade Unionists sat aside employers, journalists from multiple media platforms with contributors, church leaders with parishioners, politicians and community activists. Most important were the people there whose voice, sometimes as the result of devastating events, the team at Foyle allowed to be heard in in a safe and sensitive way.

All our communities from rural to city, faith, sporting, political, media and business united in their concern for the staff and for the survival of a truly unique station which reflects all our lives, loves and aggravations.

As it is publicly funded and dominates much of the local media landscape, the BBC has responsibilities others don’t face. It also has choices. To demolish an entire, multiple award winning, department to save a few quid whilst paying over inflated fees for other output, some of which damages us all, is senseless and cruel. Audiences, communities, relationships and the BBC all lose.

It has to be said, the performance and behaviour of the news team since the news was broke has been extraordinary. How they’ve managed to turn up for work in such a dignified way in the face of the threat which hangs over their livelihoods is testament to their professionalism and passion for the BBC, the station and telling listeners stories.

For that alone, I am standing up for them and for the station. Will you?

For now, these are just proposals. There is space for reconsideration and the BBC really must, not just for the staff and their families but for its audience too. After all, what is the point of public service broadcasting if it doesn’t serve its public?

Stephen Kelly is CEO of Manufacturing NI.