Elly Fiorentini in Conversation

Stephen Lewis, retired local journalist and former YCT Trustee, interviews BBC Radio York personality Elly Fiorentini in front of a live audience of Trust members. Elly recently clocked up 40 years with the BBC in York, and is able to reflect on changes in the city over that time as well as in the media landscape.

BBC Radio York, off Bootham, was launched in 1983. When Elly reached her 40 years as a former presenter with the BBC in York, she received a congratulatory letter from the BBC Director General. She has therefore covered major news stories in York for 40 years, and has witnessed at first hand and been an analyst of how the city has changed. She has also seen the way the media landscape has moved on, and our expectations of radio and the BBC have altered. In 2001, BBC Radio York won the Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for Community Service for "Floodwatch News" – its coverage of the floods that hit York in November 2000. Do you remember that time and how you kept up with the latest position?

The interview could reflect on the changing face of York in the past 40 years, and look ahead to the prospects for the future. Elly and Stephen will explain the importance of a healthy local media in terms of monitoring/ recording events and holding those in power to account. But given technological and societal developments, what are the implications for the BBC and for other media in terms of being able to do that in future?