Bill Tyson

Bill Tyson is a multi-award-winning Irish writer, producer and journalist. He currently works with DCTV and the Irish Mail On Sunday having just completed a radio documentary for RTE. Previously he worked for the Sunday Tribune and the Irish Independent.

Journalism

From 2013 to the present, Tyson has been a columnist and analyst with the Irish Daily Mail and Irish Mail On Sunday titles. Recently he exposed how Big Tech companies accept advertising for illegal products and fraudulent activities, only being legally obliged to take them down later, and campaigned for change via the upcoming Digital Services Act.

In 2008 Tyson resigned from the Tribune over the immediate sacking of a fellow journalist following a complaint from a leading advertiser about one of his articles.[1]

In 2006, as correspondent for the Sunday Tribune he exposed a highly-controversial lend-to-invest spree at ACC Bank, which was followed by the resignation of ACC's CEO, receiving an "honourable mention" in the inaugural UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Business Journalism Awards.

Tyson won three ESB national media awards for journalism. Two of these (in 2000 and 2002) were for campaigning investigative journalism into the Irish Nationwide Building Society. In 2004, he won another ESB media award for stories on borrowers who were lured into unaffordable debts and subjected to aggressive repossession tactics.

TV

Late 2020 saw production begin on Romancing Ireland, a six part series on sustainable food production for DCTV funded by the Sound & Vision fund that challenges people from different nationalities to source Irish ingredients when preparing traditional meals from their respective countries with Tyson onboard in a producer role.

Tyson, who has an MA in screenwriting, co-wrote and produced a four-hour television series for DCTV. The House[2]

From 2011 to 2013, Tyson was a reporter on the RTÉ TV series The Consumer Show. Tyson exposed the dangers of detergent tabs to children sparking a Dáil debate and child-friendly improvements to safety practices. He has also highlighted the Payment Protection Insurance mis-selling controversy, following which widespread repayments were made by banks to thousands of consumers. He also exposed high mortgage rates charged at the time by Permanent tsb. These rates were reduced shortly after the issue was aired on the show.

Two other documentaries produced by Tyson for DCTV with S&V funding were A Century of Sailing, on the oldest sailing boats in the world still racing,[3] and Little Jerusalem, a portrayal of a tiny Irish Jewish community, which has had an extraordinary impact on Irish Life.

Radio

In 2020 Tyson produced Nicolas Cruz Hernandez: Still Fighting a radio documentary about a Cuban who coached Ireland to Olympic boxing glory for RTE 1's highly regarded DocOn1 team. Tyson also recently produced Dearest Mother, a one hour radio documentary about World War I for Community Radio Youghal funded under the BAI's Sound & Vision scheme. Based on letters home from the front voiced by local actors, the production was inspired when a letter written by a granduncle he had never heard of was unexpectedly read out on an RTE radio history programme.

Film

The Tyson-produced short film "Whatever Turns You On" premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh and went on to win eight international awards including Best Short Short at Aspen Shortsfest USA 2009, an 'Oscar' qualifying event. In the same month it was short-listed for the award of Best Short Film at the Boston Irish Film Festival and received a theatrical release in Ireland and France. The short was also bought by TV stations in Poland, Ireland, Belgium, France and the UK. The year 2009 also saw the release of the short film Veronique – penned and produced by Tyson – under the Irish Film Board's Virtual Cinema scheme. Veronique was acquired by NBC Asia and screened in several countries with a potential audience of billions.[4]

Books

Tyson wrote and published an annual finance book – Your Money – which was a top ten non-fiction best-seller several times between 1996 and 2004. In 2006, a biography of Mayoman Admiral William Brown written by well-known Argentine author Marcos Aguinis and translated by Bill Tyson was published to critical acclaim.[5]

Other work

Through a voluntary group of media professionals, Community Media Associates, Tyson is a member of Dublin Community Television (DCTV) and was involved in a project to teach video production skills to disadvantaged youth in Drogheda in 2010. For the following three years he worked on two major EU media-related youth education projects: Happy Days and Digital Latin Quarter.

References
  1. "'Tribune' business editor loses post after article". irishtimes.com.
  2. "DCTV » The House: An Innovative New Drama". 4 October 2011. Archived from the original on 4 October 2011.
  3. "DCTV » Howth 17s: A Century of Sailing". 27 February 2012. Archived from the original on 27 February 2012.
  4. virtualcinema (8 October 2009). "VERONIQUE" – via YouTube.
  5. Aguinis, Marcos (1 January 2006). Admiral William Brown: Liberator of the South Atlantic. Admiral Brown Society. ISBN 0951962493.
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