This article is an analysis of the influences and pressures that television news has brought to bear on the Northern Ireland peace process. Discussed from the viewpoints and perspectives of senior journalists who have covered the peace process, it describes a complex range of uses by the participants and highlights problems which reporting has brought to bear on communications and dialogue about peace. Using studies about the relationship between news and foreign policy as a basis for thinking about the role of television in political diplomacy, the article underlines the importance of television news as part of that process, and presents television reporting, through its varying communicative influences, as itself a key participant in the developments and exchanges which have come to shape peace politics in Northern Ireland.
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