The Angry Buzz

by Patricia Holland

"Current affairs television in the UK, in more than half a century of programmes, has set out to tell us something we didn't know, treating its audience as citizens with the right to demand that 'something must be done'. Over their 36 year history, the current affairs series "This Week" and its replacement "TVEye", helped to mark out that democratic project. This is the story of "This Week", one of the few giants of the genre, set within the wider pattern of 'the angry buzz' of inquiry and dissent that is current affairs television. This is a particularly timely tale, now that many fear that current affairs may be an endangered species. Patricia Holland follows "This Week" from its beginnings in the 1950s as a light magazine programme with some serious moments, through the challenging programmes of the 1970s - which brought home the reality of poverty at home, famine in Africa and accusations of torture in Northern Ireland. The story continues right up to its demise in 1992, often blam