HEATFELT tributes have been paid to BBC journalist and presenter George Alagiah who has died at the age of 67.
The respected journalist died on Monday (July 24) after a nine-year fight with bowel cancer following his diagnosis in 2014.
After telling viewers about the life and work of his friend on the BBC’s One O’Clock News, presenter Clive Myrie added: “On a personal note, George touched all of us here in the newsroom with his kindness and generosity, his warmth and good humour.”
He appeared to choke back tears as he said “We loved him here at BBC news and I loved him as a mentor, colleague, and friend.
“His spirit, strength and courage in the later years of his life are something his family can be so proud of.
“Journalism has lost a giant.”
Alagiah reported and presented for the BBC for more than three decades, presenting the BBC News at Six for the past 20 years. Prior to this, he was an award-winning foreign correspondent.
Born in Sri Lanka before moving to Ghana and then England in childhood, he joined the BBC as a foreign affairs correspondent in 1989 and then became Africa correspondent.
A multi-award-winning journalist, he won accolades for his reports on the famine and war in Somalia in the early 1990s, and was nominated for a Bafta in 1994 for covering Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq.
He was named Amnesty International’s journalist of the year in 1994 for reporting on the civil war in Burundi and also won the Broadcasting Press Guild’s award for television journalist of the year.
Later, he presented the BBC One O’Clock News, Nine O’Clock News and BBC Four News, before being made one of the main presenters of the BBC News at Six in 2003. Alagiah also presented his own show on BBC World News for many years.
He was appointed an OBE for services to journalism in 2008.
Alagiah was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2014 and returned to presenting the following year. He continued to present for the BBC when not receiving treatment.
He had two sons with his wife of 40 years, Frances Robathan, and three grandchildren.
