BBC Journalist George Alagiah has died. A sad day indeed.
For decades he brought us the news. Today, he led it. A sad day for many of his admirers and colleagues.
George Alagiah OBE was the consummate journalist, multiple award winning and all round good guy. He was much loved. He’d been diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2014 and had been undergoing treatment.
Three years ago in this post here, under the cloud of COVID-19 he fought and won. The announcement today feels like an uncle, or good friend has passed; that’s the sentiment from those who’ve left messages.
He was an international news correspondent and inspired many, including me to enter the profession. He had a way with reporting that reflected him personally. He cared. He was empathetic.
Today BBC Journalists Clive Myrie delivered a moving tribute by his friend holding back, as his voice started to give way.
At a time when journalism has become too confrontational, weapoinised even, Alagiah, much like Myrie adopted a different approach summed up by Myrie, “ Imagine how you must feel in their shoes”. Their being the people who’d lost homes, loved one, everything.
The result in his films was a poeticism, a warmth and empathy that all budding journos should study.
He was 67 years old, and leaves behind a wife and two sons. Deepest condolences and in the akan language Alagiah grew up in Ghana) Nante Yie — which translates as safe journey, travel well.
My report from three years ago
I would watch the television transfixed. There was something about him. It was almost as if he wasn’t reporting in the hailing tradition that had come to dominate television, but engaging in an asymmetric conversation. Each word was like a frame, a nuanced script, in a critically acclaimed piece of cinema.
Furthermore, the canter of his voice and choice of words structuring his reports were a masterclass. No fat, no histrionics, yet a quiet, often visible poeticism. The best television news writers marry this synthesis between pictures as icons or symbols with the simplicity of words that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi might describe as flow. Continues here
