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Kate Adie | |
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.jpg) Adie at theGibraltar International Literary Festival in 2017 | |
| Born | Kathryn Adie (1945-09-19)19 September 1945 (age 80) Whitley Bay,Northumberland, England |
| Education | Sunderland Church High School |
| Alma mater | University of Newcastle upon Tyne (BA) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Notable credit | Chief News Correspondent forBBC News |
| Awards | Richard Dimbleby Award (1990) Fellowship Award (2018) |
Kathryn AdieCBE DL (born 19 September 1945)[2] is an Englishjournalist. She was Chief News Correspondent forBBC News between 1989 and 2003, during which time she reported from war zones around the world.
She retired from the BBC in early 2003 and works as a freelance presenter withFrom Our Own Correspondent onBBC Radio 4.
Adie was born inWhitley Bay,Northumberland.[3] She was adopted as a baby by aSunderland pharmacist and his wife, John and Maud Adie,[4] and grew up there. Her birth parents were Irish Catholics and she made contact with her birth family in 1993, establishing a loving relationship lasting more than 20 years with her birth mother "Babe" Dunnet. She failed to trace her birth father John Kelly, or his family fromWaterford, despite public appeals, she knows only that he had a brother (her blood uncle) Michael.[5]
She had an independent school education atSunderland Church High School, and in 1963–1964 travelled toBerlin, including theSoviet Sector ofEast Berlin, to complete a German-language course. She obtained her degree at theUniversity of Newcastle upon Tyne, in Swedish and Icelandic studies.[6][7] At university, she got to know the BBC presenterMarian Foster, who was president of theGilbert and Sullivan society, in which Adie performed several times.[8]
During her third year at Newcastle, she also taught English in sub-arctic northern Sweden.[9]
Adie's career with the BBC began, after graduation, as a station assistant atBBC Radio Durham. From 1971 to 1975, she was atRadio Bristol, where she presentedWomanwise on Fridays at 11am.[10]
By 1977, she was aBBC South news reporter based inPlymouth andSouthampton,[11][12] before her move to BBC national television news in 1979. She was the duty reporter one evening in May 1980 and first on the scene when theSpecial Air Service (SAS) went in to break up theIranian Embassy siege. As smoke bombs exploded in the background and SAS soldiers abseiled in to rescue the hostages, Adie reported live and unscripted to one of the largest news audiences ever, while crouched behind a car door.[4] This proved to be her big break.[13] Adie reported extensively for BBC News, including from the north London crime scenes of serial killerDennis Nilsen, in 1983.[14]
Adie was thereafter regularly dispatched to report on disasters and conflicts throughout the 1980s, includingThe Troubles in Northern Ireland,[15] the American bombing ofTripoli in 1986 (her reporting of which was criticised by theConservative Party ChairmanNorman Tebbit),[16][17][18] and theLockerbie bombing of 1988.[19][20] She was promoted to Chief News Correspondent in 1989 and held the role for fourteen years.[21]
One of Adie's most significant assignments was to report theTiananmen Square protests of 1989. She was reportedly injured after being grazed by a bullet that had "shaved the skin off her arm", as she ran through Tiananmen Square at the height of the protests.[22][23] Nearly thirty years later, she said that she and her team were the only crew out in the square, and so were able to witness "the massacre by the Chinese army of its own citizens in Beijing in 1989", which had never been acknowledged by the government nor reported in China. She said, "... at least we were there and we have the evidence of what they did. They would love to erase it from history".[24][25] Adie famously had a public disagreement with fellow British journalistJohn Simpson, who reportedly had accused her of falsifying her reports on Tiananmen Square.[11]
Major assignments followed in theGulf War, the war in the formerSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the 1994Rwandan genocide and the war inSierra Leone in 2000.[19] Her trademark assignment look became flak jacket and pearl earrings.[11]
InLibya, she met leader ColonelMuammar Gaddafi. She was also shot by a drunk and irateLibyan army commander after refusing, as a journalist, to act as an intermediary between the British and Libyan governments; the bullet, fired at point-blank range, nicked hercollar bone but she did not suffer permanent harm.[26]
While she was inYugoslavia, her leg was injured inBosnia and she met Bosnian Serb leaderRadovan Karadžić.[27]
A newspaper cartoon features two soldiers, one with a tattered flag "To Iraq" on the barrel of his machine gun, and the caption: "We can't start yet... Kate Adie isn't here."[28] Her insistence upon being on the spot elicited the wryadage that "a good decision is getting on a plane at an airport where Kate Adie is getting off".[29][30]
In 2003, Adie retired from the BBC, where she had been Chief News Correspondent.[31] She subsequently worked as afreelancejournalist, where among other work she gives regular reports onRadio New Zealand, as a public speaker, as well as participating in many of the 500 iPlayer episodes[32] ofFrom Our Own Correspondent onBBC Radio 4. She hosted two five-part series ofFound, a Leopard Films production for BBC One, in 2005 and 2006. The series considered the life experiences of adults affected byadoption and what it must be like to start one's life as afoundling.[33]
In 2017, she was one of the speakers at theGibraltar International Literary Festival.[34]
After being appointed aCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the2018 Birthday Honours, Adie warned the public that journalism was under attack:[35]
We seem to be living through a time where there are threats to journalists everywhere, whether it's repression or censorship, and it's hugely important to recognise that the intention of journalism is to tell it as it is and we need to do that more than ever now.
Adie was appointed Chancellor ofBournemouth University on 7 January 2019, succeedingBaron Phillips of Worth Matravers.[36] In her address, she warned postgraduate journalism students that confirming information and verifying news sources was critical in the current climate of fake news. She stressed the importance of personally verifying news sources. "Getting your person there is an absolutely standard lesson... news is not news without verification. ...If you only have the station cat to send, send them!".[37]
In 2005, Adie donated her professional papers, notebooks and artifacts to theUniversity of SunderlandSpecial Collections. The collection also includes analogue and digital recordings and was fully catalogued in 2025.[49]
Adie lives inCerne Abbas,Dorset.[50]
In 2017 Adie was appointed as ambassador forSSAFA, theUK’s oldest militarycharity.[51] Adie is currently also an ambassador forSkillForce[52] and the non-governmental organisationFarm Africa.[53] In July 2018 Adie became an Ambassador for the medical charityOverseas Plastic Surgery Appeal.[54]
Adie is a fan ofSunderland AFC.[55] In 2011, she took part in theSunderland A.F.C. charityFoundation of Light event.[56]
Adie's role as a BBC televisionjournalist covering the 1980Iranian Embassy siege in Princes Gate, central London, is included in6 Days. The role was played by actressAbbie Cornish.[24]
The satirical British puppet TV showSpitting Image depicted Adie as a thrill seeker, giving her the title "BBC Head of Bravery" and featuring her puppet in dangerous situations.[citation needed]
Adie is mentioned in the TV seriesGavin & Stacey having a confrontation with Stacey's best friend Nessa.
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