For the Canadian World War II propaganda film series, see The World in Action.
World in Action
1970s version of the programme's opening title
Created by
Tim Hewat
Country of origin
United Kingdom
Original language
English
No. of series
35
Production
Producer
Granada Television
Running time
30 minutes
Original release
Network
ITV
Release
7 January 1963 (1963-01-07) – 7 December 1998 (1998-12-07)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)
World in Action was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its production teams often took audacious risks, and the programme gained a solid reputation for its often-unorthodox approach. The series was sold around the world and won numerous awards. In its heyday, World in Action drew audiences of up to 23 million in Britain alone, equivalent to almost half the population.
Cabinet ministers fell to its probings. Numerous innocent victims of the British criminal justice system, including the Birmingham Six, were released from jail. Honouring the programme in its 50th anniversary awards the Political Studies Association said, "World in Action thrived on unveiling corruption and highlighting underhand dealings. World in Action came to be seen as hard-hitting investigative journalism at its best."[1] A melodramatic post-trial encounter in 1967 between Mick Jagger and senior British establishment figures, in which the rock star and his retinue were flown by helicopter onto the lawn of a stately home, was engineered by then World in Action researcher and future BBC Director-General John Birt. Decades later, Birt himself described it as "one of the iconic moments of the Sixties."[2] Soon after she became Conservative Party leader, Margaret Thatcher was said to have told the BBC Director-General, Sir Ian Trethowan, that she considered World in Action to consist of "just a lot of Trots. Panorama, however, are bastards."[3]
Its removal after 35 years was seen by some as part of a general dumbing down of British television and of ITV in particular.[4] One commercial TV regulatory official privately characterised the Tonight programme, which replaced it, as merely "fluffy".[3] Others saw World in Action's eventual disappearance as the inevitable consequence of rising commercial pressures. Announcing a £250,000 fund for an investigative journalism training scheme, Channel Four said in November 2011 that a decline in the pool of investigative journalism had occurred since "the demise of training grounds such as World in Action".[5]
^"Fiftieth Anniversary Award Winners" (PDF). Political Studies Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2008.
^"John Birt's MacTaggart Lecture 2005". The Guardian. 26 August 2005. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
^ ab"NEW – Frontline Confidential with Ray Fitzwalter: the rise and fall of ITV". Frontline Club. 13 May 2008. Archived from the original on 27 May 2016. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
^Fitzwalter, Raymond (2008). The Dream That Died: The Rise and Fall of ITV. Leicester: Troubador. ISBN 978-1-906221-87-4. OCLC 183917413.
^Conlan, Tara (8 November 2011). "Channel 4 to air more, shorter Dispatches episodes". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
WorldinAction was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its...
The WorldinAction (aka WorldinAction) was a monthly series of propaganda films from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), created to boost morale...
Killed inaction (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own personnel at the hands of enemy or...
Missing inaction (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported...
explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as David...
Action Park was an amusement and water park located in Vernon Township, New Jersey, United States, on the grounds of the Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski...
Action for World Solidarity (orig. "Aktionsgemeinschaft Solidarische Welt e.V." or in short "ASW") is a non-profit and non-governmental association based...
Affirmative action (also sometimes called reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination or positive actionin various countries' laws and...
Action for World Development was an Australian interdenominational initiative to promote world development. It began with the establishment of the Joint...
WorldAction and Adventure is a role-playing game published by M.S. Kinney Corporation in 1985. WorldAction and Adventure is a universal system, with...
, The Royle Family, The Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead Revisited, WorldinAction, University Challenge and The Krypton Factor. Notable employees have...
Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create...
Safer World: Guidelines for Natural Disaster Prevention, Preparedness and Mitigation and its Plan of Action, endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 1994...
Action comedy (often listed with a hyphen as action-comedy) is a genre that combines aspects of action and comedy. Allmovie describes action comedy films...
Athletes inAction was started in 1966 by Dave Hannah. The core of the United States national basketball team that participated at the 1978 FIBA World Championship...
A class action, also known as a class action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of...
Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study is a 2004 nonfiction work by economist Thomas Sowell. Already known as a critic of affirmative action or...
A lever action is a type of action for repeating firearms that uses a manually operated cocking handle located around the trigger guard area (often incorporating...
In the United States, affirmative action consists of government-mandated, government-approved, and voluntary private programs granting special consideration...
Lee–Metford. World War I marked the height of the bolt-action rifle's use, with all of the nations in that war fielding troops armed with various bolt-action designs...
and the faces of the polyhedron. A group action on a vector space is called a representation of the group. In the case of a finite-dimensional vector space...
Boy Kills World is a 2023 dystopian action comedy film directed by Moritz Mohr, in his directorial debut, from a screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith and Arend...
Jarrett in 2002, following the end of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 2001, the promotion was initially known as NWA: Total Nonstop Action (NWA-TNA)...
Global Information