Kate Adie fights for foreign news
WITH A DEGREE in Icelandic studies and a bit of luck, Kate Adie claims that she more or less drifted into broadcasting. But as Chief News Correspondent for the BBC and an accolade of media awards and honours to boot, Adie is clearly not a "drifter".
Addressing the Oxford Union last Wednesday night, Adie might have joked about her OAP status in the ever-changing media industry, but her message was one of timeless quality. Discussing decades of her own experience as a reporter in some of the world's worst trouble spots, Adie's lesson incorporated everything from the humourous to the down right horrific.
Adie noted the frightening speed with which current news is reported and delivered to the living rooms of indifferent 'couch-potatoes' across the world. In the wake of the August earthquake in Turkey, two rival reporters were caught squabbling over who had been the first to break the news, one of them quoting 23 minutes after the quake, the other only 18. This speed of response marks a far cry from the more primitive sort of reporting that Adie undertook in the 1970s and 80s. Brimming with anecdotes, poised expressions and dodgy accents she acted out one occasion when she had had to wait 3 days wait before the reinstallation of electricity in the Armenian capital allowed her to 'wire' her first images back to London.
Robust and sharp tongued, Adie had an answer for every question. Arbiter, patriot, adviser? Adie was adamant that the role of the journalist is none of the above. First and foremost the journalist has a duty to gather the information and report the facts...but when reality bites, dilemmas ensue. All too often Adie has been faced with the kind of gruesome, blood curdling scenes that never quite reach our TV screens. Journalists have a duty to report the facts but equally to retain the trust of their audience. Some images are just not fit for viewing. Attempting to retrieve her lighter side Adie added, "a sign that you're going in the right direction is when everyone else is going the other way!"
Adie's last concern was of the increasing disinterest in news beyond the cozy lives of our own Isles. In recent years tabloids have almost completely cut, and broadsheets have reduced, the space they dedicate to foreign news. Meanwhile the number of publications, channels and journalists have mushroomed beyond belief. 15,000 troops were based in Kosovo during the last war, and over 3,000 journalists! As we are saturated with news and journalists desperately fill every minute of the day with 'fluff', Adie implored the new generation to demand high standards of news in the future.
4th Nov 1999