He was an intellectual heavyweight, a ferocious campaigner for improving cancer screening and a gentle, pleasant presence. No wonder the nation took the newsreader into its heart
The first BBC TV newsreaders were actors or announcers: a decision rooted in the fear that journalists might insert their views into bulletins through swoops of voice or eyebrow. When this tradition was abandoned, reporters and correspondents graduated to the anchor desk in the hope that those who came to the studio from the field would bring authority and knowledge to the coverage.
George Alagiah, who has died aged 67, was the exemplar of someone who had seen first-hand events that they latterly recited from an Autocue. His two decades of news reading – across BBC One’s 1pm, 10pm and 6pm slots, before making the teatime show his own since 2003 – were informed by having reported on Rwandan genocide, civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the democratisation of South Africa, the 9/11 attacks on the US and the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. As the practice developed of the home-based host doing live “two-ways” with colleagues on the frontline, Alagiah was unusually able to conduct these conversations on equal terms.
