current affairs

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become a figurehead for freedom and democracy, and is known around the world as the brave and charismatic leader fighting to secure the freedom of Ukraine. 

Before he was elected as President in a landslide victory in 2019, Zelenskyy was an actor and comedian, known for voicing Paddington in Ukraine, winning the country’s version of Strictly Come Dancing and producing and starring in the satirical series, Servant of the People. 

We Are England will aim to reflect the changing face of England and explore hot topics in regions often ignored.

Each series of 60 programmes will therefore be made from hubs in Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, London and Norwich. 120 will be broadcast per year.

Of the programmes already made, audiences will hear from pastors keeping city streets safe at night, army veterans suffering from mental health problems retraining as HGV drivers and the family of Michelle Bettles, 20 years on from her murder.

The Shiers Trust jury was unable to decide between the two projects, which were part of a record number of applicants this year.

The documentary feature Made in Yorkshire will tell the story of how a group of young men and women took over a derelict trouser factory in a rundown part of Leeds in 1968 and set about creating television studios.

“In the decades that followed, Yorkshire Television made programmes that were viewed across the planet,” said producer/director Stuart Ramsay, who will make the film.

Newsreader and television presenter Mary Nightingale presented the awards ceremony, which took place at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

Whoever replaced national treasure David Dimbleby as host of BBC flagship Question Time faced a daunting prospect. Having fronted the show for an age-defying 25 years, he cast a long shadow, and there was intense pressure on the corporation to pick someone who wouldn’t be overpowered by the role.

Fiona Bruce was regarded in some quarters as an unlikely choice to succeed such an iconic broadcasting heavyweight. Viewers didn’t have to wait long for her baptism of fire.

The announcement follows news that The Wright Stuff, with Matthew Wright, will be ending after 18 years on air. Vine’s new programme, from ITN Productions, will fill that space, tackling news, issues and stories from across the country over 120 minutes every morning. A new programmename is to be announced in due course.

Landing a major assignment or, as modest journalists would prefer to phrase it, getting your teeth into a powerful story, can sometimes be a mix of good fortune and the result of a sequence of random, unrelated events.

Towards the end of August 2017, my team and I were preparing to head out to Bangladesh to cover floods in the north of the country. It was not particularly unusual – sadly, Bangladesh experiences them every year. The situation was severe but certainly not the worst in its history.