This is from BBC Northern Ireland Press Office:-

David Dunseith passed away on Thursday 30 June 2011, surrounded by his family. Here BBC Northern Ireland pays tribute to one of Northern Ireland's most highly regarded and much-loved broadcasters.

A voice on the radio can seem like a close friend. You feel you know the man, even though you've never met him. Thousands tuned in on weekdays to listen to David Dunseith.

The programme's mood was changeable, like the Irish weather. There were storms, occasional icy patches and blasts of true sunshine. Over 20 years, the man and the programme fused – Dunseith was Talkback – a voice of authority who kept a wry eye on machinations in Northern Ireland.

His colleague Gerry Anderson, who delighted in playful banter, once said that David Dunseith went to work every day "in the belly of the beast".

"Here come the crazies," he'd joke as he handed the airspace over to David. But Dunseith just laughed.

He revelled in his programme. He did not let his interviewees, nor the public who stormed the phonelines, off the hook. Many of the callers were regulars. Gerard from Clonard, Bertie from Lisburn or East Belfast Protestant Lady all had their say.

Some callers were furious; others infuriating. But like the circus ringmaster, he cracked the whip, reined in the lions and kept a close eye on the clowns. David Dunseith once said Talkback was: "the people's parliament".

As presenter at the helm from 1989 to 2009, he offered the man and woman on the street a voice in the dark days of the Troubles when many felt their voices counted for nothing.

Helen McKendry broke a silence of 22 years to speak to him. She went on Talkback to describe the day her mother, Jean McConville, one of the so-called "Disappeared", was taken away to be murdered by the IRA. Later, Lord Fitt was to describe that interview as one of the most poignant, he had ever heard.

It was David Dunseith who conducted a measured, thoughtful interview with IRA Brighton bomber, Patrick Magee.

Back in the Eighties, it was on Talkback that John Hume, the then leader of the SDLP challenged Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader over violence. Hume said he wanted to talk to the IRA. Perhaps Talkback was a small footnote in the history that followed.

The beauty of Dunseith's touch could be seen in the way he moved seamlessly from dark, challenging or worthy topics to lighter ones. "Sometimes when politicians are debating the weighty matters of state, we find that the listeners want to talk about other matters entirely," he once said, bemused by the sheer quixotic nature of life.

"Just mention litter, chewing gum or telephone directories and the phones light up. This is what makes Talkback a success. Ultimately , it's the people who decide what's in the programme and long may they continue to do so."

There were plenty of laughs – Talkback was where it all began for The Hole in the Wall gang.

There were groundbreaking outside broadcasts like the one in the Whiterock in West Belfast held to mark Operation Banner – the withdrawal of the army from Northern Ireland. There, ex-soldiers and ex-IRA men had their say.

The mark of the man was his way with people – they wanted to talk with him, they wanted to engage. It was often a love/hate relationship. He interviewed politicians, priests, prime ministers, paramilitaries – but most of all, he championed the point of view of the man and woman on the street.

The debate was often heated – his gift was that he never was. He cajoled, he chastised, he was a straight talker and he was not afraid to put the tough questions.

"I take a lot of personal abuse – but I take a professional approach and I accept that that is inevitable," he said.

If there were brickbats, there were also bouquets. In 1993 David Dunseith won a coveted Gold Sony Award as local broadcaster of the year and Talkback won further Sonys in 1997 and 2006.

His colleagues benefited from his expertise and his down-to-earth approach. BBC NI Head of News, Kathleen Carragher, said: "David Dunseith was passionate about Talkback and its audience. His grasp of Northern Ireland society was unparalleled. A whole generation of producers worked with David and learned from him."

The London School of Economics said of his work during some of the most difficult days of the Troubles: "Dunseith operates on the basis that all talk, even what is manifestly prejudiced, is better than none, especially if it allows opinion to be tested within a public sphere in which people cannot listen only to the ranting of their own side."

David Dunseith grew up in Londonderry and was an RUC police officer before he turned to journalism in the Seventies. He worked for UTV before moving to the BBC in the late Eighties. He stepped down from Talkback in 2009, but returned to host BBC Radio Ulster's Seven Days. In 2010, his beloved wife Roisin Walsh-Dunseith, a former UTV journalist, died. She had suffered from Motor Neurone Disease.

David will be missed by his family.

On his last ever Talkback programme in 2009, he stepped down in a suitably low key way that summed up his humility, his warmth and his style.

"Difficult now... What do I say?

"There was a song – I think it was a Woody Guthrie song – 'So long it's been good to know you. I gotta be drifting along'.

"That's all from me now..." And with that, the studio light faded, the microphone went silent and he was gone.





Tributes

BBC Director General, Mark Thompson, said: "David Dunseith served BBC audiences in Northern Ireland with distinction throughout some of the most difficult and contentious years of its history. For 20 years, David provided a safe platform for people to air their views and appreciate the perspectives of others. He did this with tenacity, encyclopaedic knowledge and patience; putting the audience at the heart of his programme and winning loyalty and respect from all sides of the community. He will be greatly missed by all at the BBC."

Peter Johnston, Director BBC Northern Ireland, said: "David was a unique broadcasting talent in Northern Ireland. Host of the iconic programme Talkback he became a true legend of the airwaves and was much loved by listeners from all walks of life. He conducted interviews in a searching and robust manner, always with courtesy and good humour. We honour his contribution to the success of one of our flagship programmes. He will be greatly missed by his colleagues and loyal audiences who he has served for the best part of his life. Our thoughts are with his family on this sad occasion."

Wendy Austin, Talkback presenter and colleague, said: "I'm so sorry to hear the news. David was a fantastic broadcaster – his immediately recognisable voice was known and loved in so many homes in Northern Ireland and further afield. As his successor on Talkback I'm only too aware that it's a challenging programme – David carried it off with aplomb and friend and foe alike regarded him with respect. All of us who worked with him knew how devastated he was by the loss of his beloved Roisin – it was typical of David that despite his own illness and grief he kept on broadcasting for as long as he could. We will all miss him."

Gerry Anderson, BBC Radio Ulster presenter, said: "David Dunseith was a consummate gentleman and was one of the finest of broadcasters I had the privilege to know. I'm so very sorry to hear that he has passed away."



BBC Northern Ireland Press Office

Source:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/07_july/01/dunseith....

David Dunseith: Broadcaster whose 'Talk Back' programme served as a people's forum during the Troubles

David Dunseith was a titan of Belfast broadcasting, presenting current affairs radio and television programmes for the entire length of the Troubles in a career that spanned almost four decades. During that time he coped with scores of atrocities and dozens of political cataclysms, earning himself an unrivalled reputation not just for incisiveness but also for courtesy and, above all, fairness and objectivity. In effect he set the gold standard as an interviewer, particularly within BBC Belfast, which broadcast to a society wracked by strong political and sectarian divisions, and all too often by violence as well.

The success of his efforts was illustrated by the tributes that flowed in after his death, from the public, and all points of the political compass. The Unionist First Minister Peter Robinson described him as a consummate professional, while his Republican deputy Martin McGuinness said his shows were unmissable, adding, "David was, for me and I am sure many others, quite simply the voice of radio here."

He will always be associated with BBC Radio Ulster's ground-breaking Talk Back programme, which hepresented for almost 20 years. This was, and is, a live show which for a daily hour and a half informed and entertained with items ranging from the Troubles-related to the morelight-hearted and sometimes saucy. One area of investigation, for example, concerned the regularity with which Belfast males changed their underpants. Dunseith's versatility meant he could tackle any topic, no matter how controversial or how offbeat, moving seamlessly from the desperately serious to the frankly whimsical.

He had behind him an imaginative production team which had himpolitely but tenaciously grilling senior politicians and paramilitaries. But the show, in a radical departure for the BBC, also put telephone callers on the air to vent their opinions. The result was a airing of all shades of opinion in a way that was novel to Belfast. Some callers to the show were sensible and constructive; others were fuming and destructive. But together they gave a picture of various slices of public opinion which was sometimes called the people's parliament.

The philosophy was described in a London School of Economics report, which said: "Dunseith operates on the basis that all talk, even what is manifestly prejudiced, is better than none, especially if it allows opinion to be tested within a public sphere in which people cannot listen only to the ranting of their own side."

Some contributors came to be known as "crazies" –Republican, Loyalist and others – who tested the limits of Dunseith's civility. "Have you been listening at all?" he would exclaim. "Have you heard one word that's been said?" His irritation was always kept within the bounds of politeness, and his expressions of exasperation became an integral part of the show. He was also well-known for his own favourite subjects: he detested in particular litter and cruelty to animals.

His time on Talk Back began in 1989, which meant he dealt with major acts of violence, huge political developments and the course of the peace process, which was for many years a highly controversial subject. Being on live radio for more than seven hours a week meant he often had to cope, with hardly a moment's notice, with emergencies and crises. This he did with great grace. After one emergency I thanked him, as his producer, for handling things with such poise. "Look, that's what I'm for," he responded. "The routine stuff is easy enough – it's coping with the unexpected, that's why they hire me."

Though regarded as a supreme professional, he actually started out as an untrained amateur who had no formal training in journalism. He had previously been an officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary's drugs squad; when he appeared on television in this role he was spotted as a natural communicator and persuaded to leave the force to join Ulster Television. Broadcasting in Belfast had previously been something of a backwater but the eruption of the Troubles meant that a new type of journalist was called for. Dunseith fitted the bill.

He later made the switch to BBC Belfast, working in a variety of roles before joining Talk Back. It was such a perfect fit that both he and theprogramme developed into broadcasting institutions. Of his thousands ofinterviews, his most famous was with Helen McKendry, a west Belfast woman whose mother had been abducted,shot and buried by the IRA in the 1970s. Her Talk Back interview is remembered as one of the most poignant and heart-breaking moments not just in broadcasting but in the Troubles as a whole. McKendry broke a silence of morethan two decades before giving the interview, which highlighted the largely unknown issue of what became known as "the Disappeared". She described the torments of a family which had been shattered, with the children placed in care.

The IRA adamantly denied responsibility but gradually a campaignexerted mounting pressure and the IRA eventually admitted it had carried out the killings. Some bodies remain unrecovered to this day but that of McKendry's mother was eventually located and given a decent burial. In a tribute to Dunseith McKendry said: "David came to my home. He was the first person who listened to me speak and helped me when I needed it. I was very frightened – people had known there were people who had disappeared, but they were too afraid to speak. He was the man who gave the Disappeared a voice."

Dunseith escaped from the Troubles when off-duty by living in an idyllic cottage in rural County Down. His wife Roisin, who was also a broadcaster, died last year.

David Dunseith, police officer and broadcaster: born 2 October 1934; married Roisin Walsh (died 2010; three sons); died 30 June 2011.


By:- David McKittrick

Source:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/david-dunseith-broadcaster-whose-ta...