Editing World in Action (section)

==Investigative legacy==
From the beginning, and especially from the late 1960s, ''World in Action'' broke new ground in investigative techniques. Landmark investigations included the [[John Poulson|Poulson]] affair, corruption in the [[West Midlands Serious Crime Squad]], the exposure of the shadowy and violent far-right group [[Combat 18]], investigations into [[L. Ron Hubbard]] and [[Scientology]], and most notably, a long campaign that resulted in the release from prison of the [[Birmingham Six]], six [[Ireland|Irishmen]] falsely accused of planting [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] bombs in [[Birmingham]] pubs.

''World in Action's'' appetite for controversy created tension with the [[Independent Broadcasting Authority]] (IBA), the official regulator during most of the series's run, which had the power to intervene before broadcast. Sir [[Denis Forman]], one of Granada's founders, wrote that "[[trench warfare]]" existed between the programme and the industry regulator, the [[Independent Television Authority]], in the years between 1966 and 1969 as ''World in Action'' sought to establish its journalistic freedoms.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Forman|first=Denis|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38301065|title=Persona Granada : some memories of Sidney Bernstein and the early days of independent television|date=1997|publisher=André Deutsch|isbn=0-233-98987-0|location=London|pages=222|oclc=38301065}}</ref>

The most celebrated dispute was in 1973, over the banning of ''The Friends and Influence of John L Poulson'', the definitive film about the Poulson affair, itself one of the defining scandals of British political life in the 1960s. Poulson was an architect, who was jailed a year later for [[political corruption|corrupting]] politicians and civil servants to advance his construction business. The regulator, which was then the IBA, banned the film without seeing it and without giving official reasons other than "broadcasting policy". As a protest, Granada broadcast a blank screen – which, bizarrely, recorded the third-highest TV audience of that week. After a public furor, which saw newspapers from the ''[[Sunday Times (UK)|Sunday Times]]'' to the ''[[Socialist Worker]]'' unite in condemnation of "censorship", the IBA held a second vote, having by then seen the film. By a single vote, the ban was lifted and the programme, by then retitled ''The Rise and Fall of John Poulson'', was transmitted on 30 April 1973, three months after it was first scheduled.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Goddard|first=Peter|date=May 2006|title=Scandal at the regulator|volume=43|work=[[Royal Television Society]]|issue=5|url=http://www.rts.org.uk/magazine_det.asp?id=4758&sec_id=826|url-status=dead|access-date=2020-10-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928015602/http://www.rts.org.uk/magazine_det.asp?id=4758&sec_id=826|archive-date=2007-09-28}}</ref>

In January 1980, the programme examined the business practices of the then chairman of [[Manchester United F.C.|Manchester United football club]], [[Louis Edwards]]. Edwards ran a wholesale butchery business that supplied schools in [[Manchester]]; ''WIA'' exposed practices of bribery of council officials and the supply of meat that was unfit for human consumption to such institutions; Edwards' businesses were subsequently prosecuted and lost their contracts. Louis Edwards himself died of a heart attack a month after the show was broadcast.

''World in Action'' tackled the British [[intelligence service]]s, as well as the Royal Navy, over their recruitment practices; senior navy personnel famously [[door-stepped]] the director of ''World in Action'''s film in question. The programme broadcast revelations by [[whistleblowers]] from both [[GCHQ]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/106622|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081020015945/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/106622|url-status=dead|archive-date=20 October 2008|title=World in Action: Mr Kane's Campaign|work=BFI Film & TV Database|publisher=[[British Film Institute]]|access-date=29 March 2013}}</ref> the government's electronic eavesdropping and surveillance headquarters, and from the [[Joint Intelligence Committee (UK)|Joint Intelligence Committee]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/460599|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022025005/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/460599|url-status=dead|archive-date=22 October 2008|title=World in Action: Defending the Realm|work=BFI Film & TV Database|publisher=[[British Film Institute]]|access-date=29 March 2013}}</ref>

Its most audacious investigation of the intelligence community was, perhaps, an extended edition in July 1984 titled "The Spy Who Never Was", the confessions of a former [[MI5]] officer, [[Peter Wright (MI5 officer)|Peter Wright]]. ''[[Spycatcher]]'', Wright's subsequent account of the period when his colleagues and he had, as he put it, "bugged and burgled our way across London",<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Wright|first1=Peter|title=[[Spycatcher|Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer]]|last2=Greengrass|first2=Paul|publisher=[[Viking Press]]|year=1987|isbn=0-670-82055-5|location=New York, NY|pages=54|oclc=17234291}}</ref> revealed what had in effect been a planned coup against the then-Labour government of [[Harold Wilson]]. Wright appeared to have been in charge of the technical side of things. "The Wilson plot", as it became known, was corroborated to varying degrees both before and after the film's transmission in various other books by journalists and in volumes of memoirs by others involved in the conspiracy. Wright's book was the most explosive of them all. Wright, embittered by a still-unresolved pension dispute, fled to Australia, where the book was written and finally published – to the fury of Margaret Thatcher – with the assistance of the original programme's chief researcher, [[Paul Greengrass]]. Publication in Britain was initially banned outright by the government of Margaret Thatcher.

The series was rarely away from the courts and the threat of legal action. The Scientologists tried – and failed – to stop ''World in Action'''s broadcasts about them through the courts, and in 1980, members of the programme's staff and senior executives at Granada TV announced that they would be prepared to go to prison rather than submit to a [[House of Lords]] ruling<ref>{{Cite web|title=British Steel Corp. v. Granada Television Ltd.|url=http://uniset.ca/terr/css/britishsteel.html|access-date=2020-08-21|website=uniset.ca}}</ref> that the programme reveal the identity of an informant who had supplied ''WIA'' with 250 pages of secret documents from the then-state-owned [[British Steel Corporation]]<ref>[http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/tv/100/articles/100.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060211044820/http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/tv/100/articles/100.html|date=11 February 2006}}</ref> which was at the time locked in an [[industrial dispute]] with its workforce.

In 1995, [[Susan O'Keeffe]], a ''World in Action'' journalist, was threatened with prison in Ireland for refusing to reveal her sources. She had investigated scandals within the Irish [[meat industry]] in two films in 1991, setting in motion a three-year [[Tribunal of Inquiry]] in Dublin, which found that much of her criticism of the industry was substantiated. The tribunal, though, demanded that she name her informants, and when she refused to do so, she was charged by the Irish [[Director of Public Prosecutions]].<ref>[https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9410&L=irishlaw&D=0&O=A&P=10778&F=P] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205014907/https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9410&L=irishlaw&D=0&O=A&P=10778&F=P|date=5 February 2012}}</ref> The case became a [[cause célèbre]] in the [[Republic of Ireland]], and in January 1995 she faced trial for [[contempt of court]] but was cleared of the charge.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0141/S.0141.199409010006.html|title=Parliamentary Debates: 01 September 1994|publisher=[[Seanad Éireann]]|access-date=29 March 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205022859/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0141/S.0141.199409010006.html|archive-date=5 February 2012|df=dmy-all}}</ref> O'Keeffe was honoured in the 1994 [[Campaign for Freedom of Information|Freedom of Information Awards]] for her stand.<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://www.cfoi.org.uk/awards94pr.html#okeeffe|title=1994 Freedom of Information Awards|publisher=[[Campaign for Freedom of Information]]|date=27 February 1995|access-date=29 March 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130603081407/http://www.cfoi.org.uk/awards94pr.html#okeeffe|archive-date=3 June 2013|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

In its last few years, the programme was involved in two high-profile [[libel]] cases. It won the first (along with ''The Guardian'') against the former [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] [[Cabinet Minister|cabinet minister]] [[Jonathan Aitken]], and lost the second, against the [[high street]] chain [[Marks & Spencer]].<ref>[http://www.cpbf.demon.co.uk/FreePress/fp108/fp108.htm] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061007191219/http://www.cpbf.demon.co.uk/FreePress/fp108/fp108.htm|date=7 October 2006}}</ref>

On 10 April 1995, Aitken, himself a former journalist for [[Yorkshire Television]], called a televised press conference three hours before the transmission of a ''World in Action'' film, ''Jonathan of Arabia'', demanding that allegations about his dealings with leading [[Saudis]] be withdrawn.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://century.guardian.co.uk/1990-1999/Story/0,,112789,00.html|title=Aitken sues over Saudi claims|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=11 April 1995|access-date=29 March 2013}}</ref> In a phrase that would come to haunt him, Aitken promised to wield "the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play&nbsp;... to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo971217/debtext/71217-03.htm|title=House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 Dec 1997|publisher=[[House of Commons (United Kingdom)|House of Commons]]|date=17 December 1997|access-date=29 March 2013}}</ref> Aitken was subsequently sentenced to 18 months in prison for [[perjure|perjuring]] himself in the resulting libel case.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/aitken|title=Special reports: the Aitken case|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=29 March 2013}}</ref> ''World in Action'' followed the collapse of Aitken's libel case with a special edition whose title reflected the MP's claim to wield the "sword of truth". It was called ''The Dagger of Deceit''.