Kate Adie
Kate Adie OBE (born September 19 1945) is a British journalist. Her most high-profile role was that of chief news correspondent for BBC News during which time she became well-known for reporting from war zones around the world.
Adie was born in Northumberland, within sight of St Mary's Island. She was adopted as a baby by a Sunderland couple and grew up in the city. She is an avid fan of the city's football team, Sunderland A.F.C.. She had an independent school education at Sunderland Church High School, and then studied at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne where she took a degree in Scandinavian Studies. Her career with the BBC began as a station assistant at BBC Radio Durham, then a producer for Radio Bristol. She then switched to television, directing outside broadcasts. She was a reporter for regional TV News in Plymouth and Southampton. She joined the national news team in 1976.
Her big break was the London Iranian Embassy siege in 1980. As that evening's duty reporter, Adie was first on the scene as the Special Air Service stormed the embassy. The BBC interrupted coverage of the World Snooker Championships and Adie reported live and unscripted to one of the largest news audiences ever whilst crouched behind a car door.
Adie was regularly dispatched to report on disasters and conflicts throughout the 1980s, including the American bombing of Tripoli in 1986, which proved highly controversial with the Conservative Party Chairman Norman Tebbit, and the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. She was promoted to Chief News Correspondent in 1989 and held the role for fourteen years. One of her first assignments was to report the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Major assignments followed in the Gulf War, war in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the war in Sierra Leone in 2000. In 2003 Adie withdrew from front-line reporting. She currently works as a freelance journalist and public speaker, including regular reports on Radio New Zealand. Kate Adie presents From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4.
Her close-to-the-action approach once caused her to be shot at by an "irate Libyan". The shot nicked her collar bone but she did not suffer permanent harm. Indeed, it was this approach that elicited the wry adage that "a good decision is getting on a plane at an airport where Kate Adie is getting off".
Adie published a best-selling autobiography in 2002 A second book, Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War, was published in 2003. Most recently, in 2005, Adie published her third book Nobody's Child. This covers the history of foundling children and questions of identity. Most press reports indicate that Adie is an intensely private woman and say, with a hint of irritation, that little is known about her beyond her work at the BBC. Adie was awarded an OBE in 1993 and won the Richard Dimbleby Award from BAFTA in 1990. She has honorary degrees from 10 universities, is an Honorary Professor of Journalism at the University of Sunderland, and has 3 Honorary Fellowships.
References
- The Kindness of Strangers, Autobiography published by Headline, ISBN 0-7553-1073-X
External links
- 1945 births
- British reporters and correspondents
- BBC newsreaders and journalists
- Alumni of Newcastle University
- Academics of Royal Holloway, University of London
- Officers of the Order of the British Empire
- English adoptees
- English television presenters
- Living people
- People from Sunderland
- People from Northumberland
- War correspondents