Sometimes you get a strong sense that mischief is afoot – that was certainly the case when I heard early last week that a draft of the US Supreme Court judgement on Roe v Wade had been leaked to the media. With leaks you have to figure out who benefits, and in this case the…

I always get a pleasant sense of expectation when I hear of a new channel coming to the television or radio landscape. Last week saw the start of yet another TV News channel in the UK – Talk TV, (with much the same schedule as the existing Talk Radio), available on the usual platforms and…

I used to avoid television dramas based on true stories – impossible to know what was added for dramatic effect, and the ending, if you were lucky enough to get a satisfying one, was often known already. Recent dramas have changed my mind – these shows are really well made, there are satisfying twists and…

Usually there are loads of religious programmes on mainstream media over Easter. Mostly it’s biblical epics and religious services, but I’m always on the lookout for something different and creative. Walled City Passion (RTE One, Easter Sunday) certainly had those qualities. It imagined a peace festival in a certain walled city – Derry, but not…

It’s great to see the idea of pilgrimage becoming more popular in recent years but sometimes it just becomes a secular or self-improvement exercise, with the spiritual side vague or side-lined. Pilgrimage: Road to the Scottish Isles (BBC One, Sunday) is the third outing in this series from BBC. The formula is the same –…

Late at night (late for me!) I tend to dip into the newspaper review programmes on the British channels – it’s a good snapshot of what’s coming up on the next day’s headlines. Press Preview (Sky News) and The Papers (BBC News) still have their guest reviewers joining in remotely, while Headliners (GB News) seems…

On a media training session for politicians the advice would include being on top of your brief, knowing your facts. You’d probably be schooled in the skills of dodging – learning to answer the question you’d like to have been asked instead of the one you were asked. You’d be told to stress how ‘clear’…

I’m not a great fan of most Irish comedians. I find many of them loud, crude and unfunny, but I do realise these are subjective matters…to a point. I wouldn’t be rushing to one of his gigs, but I was impressed by the host on the Tommy Tiernan Show (RTÉ One, Saturday) when he interviewed…

Very often TV series from the 80s don’t date very well but a select few are as engaging and relevant as ever. Yes, Prime Minister, currently on repeat (BBC Four, Wednesdays and Saturdays), is as fresh as ever –the political satire still bites sharply. Last week’s episode ‘The Bishop’s Gambit’ is one of the funniest.…

And so, we got another week of intense coverage of the war in Ukraine – absorbing, disturbing and frequently heart-breaking. On The Hard Shoulder (Newstalk, Thursday) we heard the latest fighting words from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – he said the Russians may bomb their cathedrals but they won’t make Ukrainians give up their country or…