There have been so many memorable TV reporters/journalists over the years, it’s extremely difficult singling out one as a ‘Treasure’. Before I developed a personal interest in economics or politics, it was the war correspondents who first made an impression on me. What young boy would not have been left boggle-eyed at Julian Pettifer in Vietnam or Martin Bell in Belfast or Beirut cowering in flak jackets beside crumbling masonry with bullets and shells fizzing around their ears, all for our information and entertainment? It was dramatic stuff.
Later there was a stony-faced Brian Hanrahan in the South Atlantic counting out warplanes from a carrier and counting them all back, Jeremy Bowen bravely telling it as it is in the Middle East, a youthful Rageh Omaar in Iraq, John Simpson liberating Kabul in a burkah and Kate Adie risking her life reporting from Libya, Yugoslavia, Tiananmen Square, and just about everywhere else where it was all kicking off.
There’s nothing like a good crisis to make the name of a TV correspondent as they appear every night, these days often live, to explain the issues. Mark Tully was for years the face and voice of the BBC in India, with all its political and natural disasters and Martin Sixsmith our trusted man in Moscow during the Soviet Union’s collapse. In recent years, the bright-eyed Katya Adler has been brilliant at capturing the intricacies and idiocies of Brexit from Brussels and of course now we have David Shukman (Science), Fergus Walsh (Medical) and the wonderfully calm and measured tones of Hugh Pym relating how the Coronavirus impacts on our health.
We researchers used to moan constantly at journalists’ tendency to misuse and abuse statistics but I still make an exception of the Beeb’s Home Affairs editor, Mark Easton, who also seems unfazed when interacting with ‘real’ people, and not just politicians or police chiefs. My estimation for Washington’s Jon Sopel also rose several notches when a newly-elected Trump laid into him at press conferences, presumably because he didn’t fawn at his feet and take his blatant lies at face value. Other memorable specialists include Reg Turnill who, back in the 1960s/70s, would frequently appear on news bulletins with models of Concorde, space rockets and landing modules, and Professor Branestawm lookalike Will Gompertz on the Arts.
I also had a soft spot for Evan Davis who, provided you ignored his odd-shaped facial features, had a rare gift for explaining economics and business to the layman and woman. On the same subject, Robert Peston was temporarily a breath of fresh air before becoming a parody of himself, a Spitting Image puppet in human form. I also enjoyed the jovial Declan Curry’s business bulletins on BBC Breakfast News in the Noughties and the modern down-to-earth, sleeves-rolled-up reporting style of current Business correspondent Simon Jack.
The more old-school, long-form filmed features by Fergal Keane are always thoughtful and incisive, and I vividly recall George Alagiah’s heartrending reports from Sri Lanka as it reeled from the devastating tsunami in 2004. I totally appreciate the value of the TV journo as neutral observer, but sometimes a personal angle draws you into a story more deeply, as exemplified by the aforementioned duo and more recently Clive Myrie’s informed pieces on institutional racism in the USA.
However, when it comes to recurring appearances on our nightly bulletins, the political correspondents are TV royalty. The Beeb’s current political editor Laura Kuenssberg has been blessed with umpteen elections and parliamentary crises on her watch. While she’s undoubtedly sharp as a whole box of tacks, I find her hard to warm to. Nick Robinson was a rare recruit from ITN but made for a likeable and well-informed broadcaster, as was Andrew Marr who, despite his 2013 stroke, remains an interviewing force to be reckoned with on his Sunday morning show. Marr came to TV from the newspaper industry, as did the redoubtable John Cole.
For eleven long years, his over-sized glasses and steel-grey curls dominated BBC news bulletins. In particular, Cole’s broad Belfast accent contrasted with the Oxbridge voices I’d become accustomed to hearing on the telly, but the rest of Britain managed to tune in and came to love his personality and articulacy when talking about Thatcher-era politics.
Apparently he hated the accompanying celebrity, including his incomprehensible ‘Spitting Image’, but he was one of the rare breed of journalists who transferred from the Print medium late in his career (already in his fifties) to great acclaim. Whether he was commenting on the Labour party’s troubles, Thatcher’s rise and fall or the 1982 Falklands War debates, his broadcasts live from Westminster always demanded my attention. It’s a shame that it was a live piece to camera by his deputy John Sergeant that was suddenly interrupted by the PM to announce her resignation but you can’t win ‘em all.
With such wide political divisions in the UK throughout the Eighties, it speaks volumes for John Cole that he retained the respect of most politicians on all parts of the spectrum. With his Northern Ireland heritage, he also managed to tread the fine line between the sectarian extremists during the Troubles. News broadcasting has progressed in the last thirty years but I reckon John Cole would fit in as perfectly now as he did back then: a true TV great.
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