Armley asbestos disaster
On 20 July 1982, Yorkshire Television broadcast the documentary "Alice - A Fight For Life", predominantly the story of Alice Jefferson, who had worked at the Acre Mill asbestos factory in Hebden Bridge for just nine months when she was 17 years old. Thirty years later she was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given only six months to live. The documentary was also an "exposé on the workings of the asbestos industry." Its broadcast resulted in £60 million being knocked off T&N's share price overnight, headlines in the national newspapers, and the setting up of a government enquiry. Within ten days the government had halved the legal limit for asbestos dust in the workplace. In 1988 Yorkshire Television picked up the "Yorkshire Evening Post" story and produced a second critical investigation focusing on the pattern of deaths in Armley, and contradicting the government's reasons for refusing an inquiry. Called "Too Close to Home", it was broadcast as part of the "First Tuesday" documentary series on 6 December 1988.
Armley asbestos disaster
Walley (2003) stressed the importance of the role played by the "Yorkshire Evening Post" and the local MP, John Battle in sustaining interest in the Armley story for several years, from the discovery of the associated deaths, largely the work of Taylor at the "Post", up until the case finally reached court. Without downplaying the later efforts of such organisations, Walley believed it noteworthy that the "Post" was championing the cause "significantly before the emergence of any residents organisation" and sees their persistence as evidence that "behind the front page headlines there was at work a 'civic conscience' committed to the revelation and exposure of something very significant to the city as a whole," rather than a superficial, immediate coverage focusing predominantly on "the spectacular effects of eco-disasters." Between 1988 and 1992, he says, "the development of the issues of the tragedy seem almost an elite affair between local journalists and the local M.P." and dealt with the "reality... which may be intrinsically long term and whose complexity goes considerably beyond the human interest aspects of the spectacular."