Ronald Edward Derek Onions OBE (27 August 1929—27 May 2012) was an English broadcast journalist who in the 1970s pioneered a new style of radio news on the emerging local independent stations in Britain. Inspired by US radio stations heard while he was working in New York, Onions established significant change in news presentation with regular hourly bulletins which were brisk, vivid and immediate. His populist, almost tabloid, presentation was in contrast to the cautious, traditional and less frequent bulletins of the national broadcaster. The style quickly became established throughout the United Kingdom.
Onions' career in journalism began with local newspapers in London and on the south coast of England. In the 1960's he joined the BBC's television and radio news department, working on the nightly current affairs programme Tonight and then reporting and presenting on the broadcaster's new channel, BBC Two. After taking charge of the BBC's emergency coverage of the Aberfan disaster in Wales in 1966, he was appointed the broadcaster's first news organiser in the Americas at a momentous period of US history. There he produced the BBC's coverage of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Onions was later Head of News at Capital Radio in London where he introduced his pioneering news presentation with immediate success. He was then appointed Editor-in-Chief of the London Broadcasting Company and Independent Radio News, where the style was developed and sustained. As a result of its success it was copied and established permanently throughout British radio.
Early life Onions was born in Edmonton in North London on 27 August 1929 to Benjamin Onions, a plumber, and Elizabeth Amelia Onions, née Lewin.England and Wales Civil Registration, 1929 Births. He was raised in hard financial circumstances"Ron Onions: Broadcast journalism pioneer", 1 June 2012, https://pressgazette.co.uk/ron-onions-broadcast-journalism-pioneer/. in neighbouring Enfield and educated at Edmonton County Grammar School."Ron Onions", The Telegraph, London, England, 3 June 2012. On leaving school Onions carried out two years' national service in the Royal Air Force as an Aircraftman First Class, serving as a clerk in Equipment Accounts at RAF Abingdon in Oxfordshire.Ron, Doris & Sarah Onions, Don't Bring Lulu: Her Family's Tale of Trial and Triumph, Book Guild Publishing, Brighton, England, 2012, ISBN 978 1 84624 709 5.
Early career Onions learnt his trade in journalism on the Enfield Gazette"Ron Onions", Times, London, England, 2 July 2012. and as a sports reporter and sports editor for the Tottenham Weekly Herald in North London. In 1958 he moved to Brighton on the south coast of England to become a sub-editor on the local Evening Argus.Tony Stoller, "Ron Onions obituary", The Guardian, London, England, 11 June 2012.
In 1960 Onions left print journalism to join the newsroom of Southern Television, an independent broadcaster based in the port city of Southampton in southern England. After less than a year with Southern TV, Onions joined the BBC in their new local television and radio operation in Southampton to write, report and present news programmes. He remained with the BBC in Southampton for four years.
BBC national television In 1965 Onions returned to London to join the production staff of the BBC's early evening flagship current affairs programme, Tonight, where he served for a short time before moving to BBC Television News as a sub-editor. He was soon fast-tracked into reporting and presenting news on the BBC's new second channel, BBC2, as well as directing film reports on political affairs and elections.
In October 1966 he was called on to organise the BBC's emergency television coverage of the Aberfan disaster in South Wales in which 116 schoolchildren and 28 adults were killed when a coal mining waste tip collapsed. For days without much sleep he ensured "the catastrophe’s awful scope was properly understood and told".Christopher Terry, "Ron Onions: Journalist who brought the energy of American radio to the UK with LBC", The Independent, London, 18 June 2012. In a "remarkable and humane piece of broadcasting" Onions' arrangements for the televising of the children's funerals placed five cameras in the village and in the cemetery and he insisted that commentary would be superfluous and intrusive, and so the edited images were transmitted with only the natural sound of the procession and the ceremony. Onions' recollection towards the end of his life of his role at Aberfan was "self-effacing ... and gives little hint of the pivotal part he played or the emotional reaction I know he felt," wrote his former BBC News colleague Tony Crabb.Tony Crabb, "Don't bring Lulu by Ron, Doris and Sarah Onions", Prospero, BBC, London, England, August 2012.
News organiser, New York Onions' multi-abilities in presenting, reporting, directing, producing and facilitating the work of others, particularly as demonstrated by his work at Aberfan, were highly regarded by BBC News. In November 1967 the BBC, realising "the need to have field producers organising coverage of big breaking stories", appointed him to the "prestigious" newly created post of Television News Organiser, based in New York, covering North and South America and the Caribbean from an office in the Rockefeller Centre in Manhattan. Here, for five years, working with correspondents of the stature of Charles Wheeler and Gerald Priestland, he orchestrated the BBC's coverage of major events. Notable among them were the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy, the Mỹ Lai massacre in Vietnam, the fatal student protests at Kent State University and the achievements of the Apollo 11 crew in landing on the Moon. Onions enjoyed notable successes in this role. As the UK Press Gazette reported, "It was a golden professional period. Far from being daunted by history in the making, Onions relished his instinct for it."
At the end of Onions' five-year term in America, the BBC invited him to replace their correspondent Charles Wheeler in Washington, D.C. when Wheeler returned to London. Largely for family reasons, Onions turned down that opportunity and also a subsequent offer to become the BBC's news organiser in Tokyo. In 1972 he returned to London. There he was offered the post of deputy foreign editor but, finding himself increasingly at odds with the BBC, he declined. He later recalled: "In a foolish display of petulance, I said I didn't see myself as deputy to anyone". Despite his "restlessly creative spirit" he returned to the sub-editors' desk.
Capital Radio News In 1973 Independent Local Radio was launched in the United Kingdom. Applications were invited by the Independent Broadcasting Authority for two franchises in London, one for an entertainment station and one for news.Local Radio Workshop, Capital: Local radio and private profit, Comedia Publishing Group, London, 1983, ISBN 0 906 890 14 4. One of the applicants for the entertainment franchise invited Onions to become its Head of News if it won the franchise. Onions accepted but the applicant failed in its bid.
Onions was disillusioned by the BBC and its news department and wanted to develop and work on a different style of news broadcasting after being impressed by radio news in New York. In the spring of 1973 Onions approached a former BBC colleague, Michael Bukht, the programme controller of the winner of the entertainment franchise, Capital Radio. Bukht told Onions he was looking for a Head of News and invited him to meet the company's chairman, Richard Attenborough, and the managing director, John Whitney. They immediately offered Onions the post and he left the BBC to join Capital in late July 1973, ten weeks before the station was to go on air.
Onions recruited an 18-strong teamMike Baron, Independent Radio: The Story of Commercial Radio in the United Kingdom, Terence Dalton, Lavenham, Suffolk, England, 1975 ISBN 0 900963 64 6. of mostly unknown radio writers, editors, reporters, producers and presenter/newsreaders to run Capital's round-the-clock news service. Some came from BBC radio, some from hospital and industrial radio services, some from Australia, New Zealand and Canada with experience in commercial radio, and one or two from theatre and television. A number of the young team, such as Tricia Ingrams from United Biscuits Network, Robin Houston from a voiceover and technical theatre background and Greg Grainger from Australian radio, were later to become household names. With the addition of its secretarial support, Onions' Capital Radio newsroom was seen as "surprisingly extensive".
When in New York, Onions had been a keen admirer of the non-stop all-news radio stations, CBS and WINS. He later recalled that "they had a dynamic quality not yet experienced in the United Kingdom." It was this energy that Onions wanted to harness and introduce to Capital's hourly (and in the breakfast show, half-hourly) news bulletins 24 hours a day, in contrast to the BBC's traditional, cautious, moribund news presentation.Hugh Chignell, Public Issue Radio: Talks, News and Current Affairs in the Twentieth Century, Palgrave Macmillan, United Kingdom, 2011. At Capital Radio he was responsible for introducing to the UK the fast three-minute "synopsis" or "snapshot" bulletin. "Relying on pace, brilliant writing, vivid interview snippets and short, punchy eyewitness reports – immediate, upfront, sometimes brash, and always with an 'angle' – it helped pave the way in this country for the modern concept of 'rolling news'." It was a "lighter, jauntier approach ... akin to that of a tabloid newspaper," wrote the Times.
Broadcaster Martha Kearney, later to be one of Onions' journalist "finds", described the new style: "Everything was live, much more immediate, and for reporters ... everything had to have actuality: it was about sound, it was being in the situation, you used very short news clips, you always had to make sure you were there, gathering the material yourself."Martha Kearney, Last Word. BBC Radio 4, London, transmitted 29 June 2012. The Press Gazette maintained that Onions' approach to radio news "swept away the more traditional 'bulletin of record' style. In an Onions bulletin "news was always moving forward, rather than just a summary of recent history."
Despite ensuring that Capital Radio News was a pioneer in the new, vigorous and brisk presentation of news, Onions' time at the station was brief. He later recalled: "I spent only six months working for Capital but I now think of it as perhaps the happiest time of my life." Under heavy pressure from the Independent Broadcasting Authority, concerned at the low quality of presentation achieved by Capital's London news competitor, the London Broadcasting Company (LBC) and Independent Radio News (IRN), Onions was head-hunted to move to LBC. "'No!', I said 'Not that!'", he recalled later. "Not easily, I decided to join LBC".Ron Onions in a recorded conversation with Paul Easton, Surrey, United Kingdom on SoundCloud, c1983/https://soundcloud.com/paul-easton/ron-onions. Early in April 1974 he left Capital Radio to join LBC.
LBC and IRN