ITN News pressure Nottingham city council to name new sheriff

Before the meteoric rise of today’s instant communication networks, it was much harder for journalists to find new stories. So when, in the late 1990’s, ITN News picked up on the fact that Nottingham City Council had yet to announce who was to be the next Sheriff of Nottingham, they mischievously started to speculate that the Council were planning to abolish the centuries-old office that traditionally dated back to famous links with Robin Hood.

Of course, this was totally un-true but as the Council continued to dismissively resist ITN’s requests for an interview with the Leader of the Council, the news channel ratcheted -up the pressure by deciding to feature the story in their popular “...And Finally”, three minute slot that always concluded their 10pm prime-time news programme.

Council leader, John Taylor was furious and repeatedly dug his heels in deeper, stating he had far more important local government issues to deal with than choosing the next Sheriff! However, further telephone calls established that it was the Robin Hood connection that made the item “worthy” of national news focus and as ITN had already paid to use original footage from the 1950’s Richard Greene TV series, they had absolutely no intention of dropping the story. In the end, Councillor Taylor begrudgingly listened to the advice given by the media and communication team and agreed to an interview and the resultant feature took on a more ”tongue-in-cheek” view of the issue that showed the Council in a positive light!