Twenty years ago, Home Secretary Douglas Hurd introduced legislation banning British broadcasting organisations from "carrying interviews or direct statements from proscribed paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland and from representatives of Sinn Fein or the UDA".
The broadcasting ban was designed to deprive terrorism of the "oxygen of publicity" and in one fell swoop, the British government had introduced the most stringent controls imposed on the media since the Second World War.
Presented by William Crawley and featuring interviews with politicians, journalists and the actors who provided voices for news reports, this programme will consider the impact of the broadcasting ban and ask whether such legislation could ever be introduced again as part of Britain's ongoing war on terror.
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