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Red Lines

Devenport departs

Red Lines

BBC

Government

4.478 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2020

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Gareth Gordon, Enda McClafferty, Jayne McCormack and Stephen Walker join Mark Carruthers to interrogate and tease the outgoing BBC NI Political Editor, Mark Devenport.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Well, it's the end of an era and we need to mark the occasion properly.

0:04.8

After three and a half decades working for the Beeb, 19 of them as political editor here in Belfast,

0:10.3

Mark Devonport or Mark D, as he's affectionately known in these corridors, is about to make a dash for the door.

0:16.4

So what were the highs and lows of his time at the helm and will things ever be the same when he's gone?

0:23.3

Gareth.

0:24.1

There'll certainly be a lot harder for people like me

0:26.3

who don't understand a lot of stuff that Mark Devinport used to explain to me

0:29.9

slowly it has to be said.

0:32.3

I was thinking about this on the way up here.

0:34.6

I'm in Stormont, a place that Mark Devinport and I have shared

0:37.1

many, many, many happy moments.

0:39.5

I was thinking he's no WD Flex, that's for sure.

0:43.0

Now, for those of us old enough to remember,

0:46.4

and Jay McCormick wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about,

0:48.6

WD Flex was BBC Northern Ireland's political correspondent

0:52.0

or political editor when I was growing up

0:53.8

and sort of discovering news. He was the political correspondent or political editor when I was growing up and sort of discovering news.

0:56.3

He was the political editor or correspondent between 1964 and 1982, which seems like a long time,

1:02.9

but it's not actually quite as long as Mark Devonport has been the political editor in BBC Northern Ireland.

1:08.8

He's a slightly less Northern Irish version of WD Flax,

1:12.6

described by another old BBC correspondent called Eric Waugh, I'm sure people will remember him,

1:18.1

as a notable, having a notable talent for the simple exposition, balanced yet necessarily brief,

...

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