William Crawley

William Crawley is a BBC journalist and broadcaster in Northern Ireland.

He recently presented Blueprint, a three-part television natural history series, which ran from 31 March 2008, as the centre-piece of the most ambitious multi-platform broadcasting project in the history of BBC Northern Ireland. The Blueprint season united TV, radio and online to explore 600 million years of Ireland's natural history. For this reason, the series provoked complaints to the BBC from young earth creationists ahead of transmission.

Other TV presenting roles include BBC Northern Ireland's weekly late-night television interview series "William Crawley Meets ...", face-to-face interviews of 30 minutes in duration with leading thinkers and social reformers from across the world, including the philosopher Peter Singer, the scientist Richard Dawkins, the writer and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, and the gay bishop Gene Robinson. He presented Frozen North (BBC One Northern Ireland), a documentary examining the possible future impact of global warming on Northern Ireland; Festival Nights (BBC Two Northern Ireland), television coverage of the 2005, 2006 and 2007 Belfast Festival at Queens; Hearts and Minds (BBC One), a television political review programme; What's Wrong With ...?" (BBC One), a six-part round-table current affairs discussion programme; and More Than Meets The Eye (BBC Two), a series investigating folklore in contemporary Ireland.

In his televised interview with the evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, Crawley challenged the use of the term "delusion" in Dawkins's best-selling book "The God Delusion". Dawkins accepted that likening the term "delusional" with mental illness may infer the wrong connotations.

On 26 February 2007, he presented Sorry For Your Trouble (BBC One), a one-hour documentary about death and dying, in which he spoke openly about a "struggling" relationship with his late father and made a visit to his father's grave for the first time in two decades. On 15 September 2008, he presented a follow-up documentary, Dying For A Drink, which examined Northern Ireland's relationship with alcohol, and in which he discussed the his father's alcoholism. Crawley also got drunk on-screen as part of a binge-drinking experiment.

On radio, he presents BBC Radio Ulster's weekly Sunday Sequence programme, and Not the Nolan Show, a weekly current affairs phone-in programme and The Book Programme, a literary review programme. His other regular radio presenting roles include: Talk Back, BBC Radio Ulster's daily news and current affairs programme; Evening Extra, the station's drive-time news programme and Arts Extra, a daily arts review programme. Previous radio programmes include: The Bonfire Makers (for BBC Radio Four), an examination of Northern Ireland's controversial annual loyalist bonfire tradition, and an extended radio essay about George Bernard Shaw for BBC Radio Three.

He writes a BBC blog entitled [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/ "Will & Testament"] , and has also presented a [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2007/03/im_blogging_this.html radio documentary] on the blogging revolution for BBC Radio Ulster.

Biography

William Crawley was born and raised in north Belfast. Prior to his career in the media, he worked as a university lecturer in philosophy and theology and as Presbyterian chaplain at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. He was educated at Grove Primary School, Belfast; Dunlambert Secondary School, Belfast; Belfast Royal Academy; Queen's University, Belfast; Princeton Theological Seminary; he earned a doctorate in philosophy (Ph.D.) in the religious epistemology of Alvin Plantinga). He has described himself as "a lapsed Protestant." [Crawley, William; "Malachi O'Doherty's Empty Pulpits", Will & Testament Blog, 24 September 2008 |http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2008/09/malachi_odohertys_empty_pulpit.html#more]

References

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/ William Crawley's blog]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blueprint/ Blueprint official website]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/ BBC Northern Ireland website]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radioulster/programmepages/sundaysequence.shtml BBC Sunday Sequence website]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radioulster/bookprogramme/ BBC Book Programme website]