Julian Holland (journalist)


Julian Holland was an English journalist and radio editor. He was the editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme from 1981 to 1986.

Early life

Holland was born in Farnworth in Lancashire on 29 March 1925; his father was a printer whose business was poorly hit by the Great Depression. The family moved to Bolton and then to Birmingham, where Holland attended King Edward's School; there, he befriended Kenneth Tynan.

Career

On leaving at the age of 18, Holland began working at the BBC. He worked on Radio Newsreel before leaving the BBC in 1954 to work in print journalism, which appealed to his more varied interests. He worked for the London Evening Standard, before joining the Daily Mail in 1962, eventually becoming the feature and leader writer. In 1966, he received Hannen Swaffer Award for descriptive writer of the year. He was also a contributing writer for That Was the Week That Was, for which he received the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award in 1963.
After being fired from the Mail in 1971, he returned to the BBC as a producer and editor on its news and current affairs radio programme The World at One; As The Times later wrote, the move facilitated what became the "most successful" period in Holland's career. In 1981, he was appointed editor of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 and, despite competition from breakfast television, he retained audience figures; he introduced "hard-nosed" journalistic techniques and believed in putting "awkward" questions to politicians. Brian Redhead and John Timpson led, with Holland recruiting Peter Hobday as a third member in 1982. Today received the Sony Award in 1985, the year before Holland retired from the BBC.
Holland had a reputation for being "fearlessly confrontational" and "pugnacious", though also loyal to friends. He died on 2 November 2001; he was survived by his second wife, the producer Carole Lacy and two daughters from his first marriage.