Whatever the political melodrama in Northern Ireland, you can be sure of one thing. It’s all Stephen Nolan’s fault. “I get the blame for everything in this country… anything that moves… anything that happens, it’s my fault,” Nolan remarked on air, tongue-in-cheek last Tuesday.
olan is to blame for toxicity, according to some tweeters. He’s the reason we Northerners shout at each other. He’s also apparently responsible for Jim Allister — a man who has been on the political scene for decades, as a student activist, then DUP MEP, now leader of the TUV.
Nolan has frequently been the target of social media commentary.
Last year, he took legal action against an anonymous account which instigated a petition against his coverage, receiving an apology and substantial damages. This year, he is suing both Facebook and Twitter to attempt to establish accountability over user content on their platforms.
Not all of the criticism is unwarranted, though some of it is obsessive and abusive. There is, perhaps, merit in feedback that a small pool of commentators (of which I am one) are used, though it is notable that the same criticism is not levelled at other programmes such as Talkback and The View who equally feature regular contributors.
Mark Carruthers handled the recent election coverage superbly, yet some commentators were largely rotated between his TV panel and the BBC radio election coverage.
The BBC’s strapline: “The biggest show in the country”, places Nolan as the most listened to analogue and digital programme in Northern Ireland, and Nolan Live regularly commands 40pc of television viewing share, perhaps due to the format, which gives equal weight to politicians, punters and political commentators alike.
One pensioner called the show a number of years ago, complaining her window was repeatedly broken by slíotars from local hurling matches. Another called from his nursing home to say he felt less alone when the programme came on air. Sandra, a woman with mobility issues, memorably called about issues with a bus journey and in typical Northern Irish fashion described being “flung about like a wet lettuce.”
When the BBC’s Spotlight exposed a child sexual abuse scandal by the late priest Malachy Finnegan, Nolan, flooded with callers, picked up the gauntlet and cleared the decks for a week to afford victims the opportunity to tell their experiences in harrowing detail.
An 86-year-old housebound caller, Jean, spoke to the programme in tears last year about her house being overrun with mice: “They’re even running over the top of me when I am in bed at night, and I can’t live like this any more,” she said.
“Ach, Jean”, Nolan replied, sympathetically. “I want you to know something, listen to me. It is absolutely completely unacceptable… I am telling you now, we have got your back and we will be supporting you in trying to get answers.”
Nolan pushed the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Frustrated by its response, the show persisted and followed up with an independent company, who took video evidence of substantial mouse droppings. The result? A senior NIHE manager was in her home the following day. The power of local radio, and Nolan at his very best.
The programme is also renowned for its doggedness when it comes to pursuing government departments. Think RHI and the DUP, or the £30,000 of Covid money erroneously sent to some Sinn Féin accounts. More recently, the Nolan Investigates team produced Stonewall, an excellent 10-hour podcast examining the influence the organisation has “in public institutions across the UK”. It also examined “issues surrounding sex, gender and identity”. Few other presenters would have touched it. The inevitable backlash ensued.
A group of 166 audio professionals signed an open letter claiming the podcast “perpetuates a narrative that creating a safe world for trans people is a divisive issue". A BBC spokesperson said: Nolan Investigates: Stonewall was an important piece of investigative journalism” which “facilitated an inclusive debate about the issues raised — all of which are matters of legitimate public interest.”
The programme was shortlisted for radio’s version of the Oscars, the Arias but failed to win any of the four categories it was nominated in, though it delivered BBCNI record listening figures.
In the past, Nolan has been named Sony UK speech broadcaster of the year, and Royal Television Society presenter of the year. His team picked up awards for their groundbreaking expose of tax dodgers in NI, and was shortlisted for investigations on the exploitation of NI’s Roma community. Assistant editor David Thompson separately won a Pulitzer prize with his previous team for coverage of the Panama papers.
Nolan’s investigative journalism upsets people. He alluded to this in 2021: “I have been threatened by powerful people in NI to stop doing particular stories on the Nolan show or else the tap of social media abuse against me would be turned on… I told that person to go to hell and it didn’t affect one second of our output.”
Still, The Nolan Show, provokes the trolls in a way like no other. Unable to tear their ears away from their radios, in order to give themselves something to write about on their keyboards, they contribute to listening figures while simultaneously imploring the BBC to do something — anything — about him. There is an innate snobbishness about calling for exclusion of voices from the Loyalist community, for example, leaving the impression that those people reach for the smelling salts every time they realise NI is not a place known for its harmonious take on things, and that opinions, even unpalatable ones, are worth interrogating than simply ignoring.
Rather than creating toxicity — which has existed in NI since time immemorial — by featuring views from all sides, Nolan is both exposing, and challenging it, while giving voice to the voiceless, and consistently holding the powerful to account.
That’s something he certainly should be given credit for.
