First impressions do count. The criteria on which you are judged will differ according to your company. I am a firm believer in the handshake as a key signifier of the personality department (with firmness equating to strength of character). Many a time have I felt let down when a potentially intriguing candidate has a feeble first greeting. Every so often you will meet someone who knows exactly how to handle the initial meeting scenario. George Alagiah is one such individual. If he was judged solely on his handshake he would pass the personality test with flying colours. But he does not rely on this attribute. His open smile and willingness to make time for people makes him most endearing.
When we meet, he has just completed a book signing at the Hay festival. His queue of fans is particularly substantial and it is easy to see why. The warm reception he has received is reciprocated. Alagiah is a gentleman.
After making sure there is a suitable place for our interview to take place he begins to enthuse about his latest project; a book entitled Home From Home. “The reason I wrote Home From Home is because I think I have got to that point in my life in that I have felt completely comfortable in who I have become,” he explains. “I have described my process of becoming an Englishman in the book. It may sound strange but it was just before I started to write that I felt secure and that nobody could take away anything I have achieved. That made me think about wanting to explore where I have come from and the journey that I have been on. Home From Home is a product of such an exploration.”
The newsreader was born in Sri Lanka in November 1955. His primary education was in Ghana where his parents moved in 1961. By the time his secondary education started, he and his family had moved to Britain. “I wanted to write about my personal journey. So it is part memoirs but there is also another part to the book. Once I had started exploring what I had become, I realised that there were tens of thousands of immigrant children for whom that journey is not possible; maybe for religious reasons or because of what their parents want them to do. But most of them were locked away in what I call separate enclaves. The chapter that deals with it in the book shows the immigrants working in another country. I compare my journey with the journey of other immigrants in Britain.”
The process of writing Home From Home was not an easy one. Alagiah had to relay deeply personal events in order to give readers a genuine account of his voyage. He speaks frankly about the effect this had on him. “If I am really honest about it, writing the book did not have a negative impact on me emotionally,” he reveals. “I was not upset by recounting my history. Achievement ought to be as interesting as under-achievement and I think that this particular journey has been one of achievement. You do life. You never stop. You just get on with it. When you start writing about it, it gives you a chance to look back and appreciate the journey.”
He becomes rather pensive. “Perhaps I ought to discuss my past more often, rather than be a figure that people see on television with no interlap or background. I do now say more and more regularly, ‘I am an immigrant.’ That is really important.”
Alagiah is in the fortunate position of being able to draw attention to important issues because of his influential position within the media. However, he has had to work hard for such a privilege. Becoming a journalist was never the easy option. “Going back 30 years ago or so it was unusual for Asian kids to want to get involved in the media,” he comments. It was his education that introduced him to alternate options. “The school I went to had a couple of teachers that encouraged writing. We had school magazines and so on. Once I got involved in them I realised I could write and started thinking about journalism. By the time I was 15 or 16 I felt that I definitely did want to go into journalism.” This replaced the former reporter’s aspirations of being a train driver or pilot.
If Alagiah’s journalistic career is briefly recounted, it becomes apparent that the transport industry’s loss was the media’s gain. He first joined the BBC in 1989 after seven years in print journalism. Before going behind the studio desk, he was one of the BBC’s leading foreign correspondents, recognised throughout the industry for his reporting on some of the most significant events of the last decade. He has presented live news programmes from Sri Lanka following the tsunami, as well as reporting from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and from Pakistan following the south-Asian earthquake.
Among prominent figures interviewed by Alagiah are: Nelson Mandela; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda; Kofi Annan of the United Nations; Yasser Arafat; President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; and Tariq Aziz of Iraq. In March 2002, George launched BBC Four’s international news programme and, more recently, he also presented his own compelling story of a continent in BBC One’s News Special, Africa: Journeys of Hope.
Although Alagiah is no stranger to working in Africa, it is not the place in which he most enjoyed his time as a correspondent. “I liked going to America,” he explains. “Not that I did it very often because I tended to do Africa and Asia. Americans understand the power of information better than anybody else. So it was always a joy to be in a society which understood what a journalist’s work was about and what you were trying to do. There is a real energy and ‘can do’ attitude about the place which I think we sometimes lack in this country.”
The broadcaster has won several awards including: the award for Best International Report at the Royal Television Society; Amnesty International’s Best TV Journalist award and the Bayeux Award for War Reporting. However, it is difficult for the newsreader to consider a single moment of his career that has been particularly rewarding. ‘There aren’t so much moments,’ he says. ‘Each story had its own sort of power and interest, whether it was the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda or Hurricane Katrina. The really stand-out thing for me is that I think it is a privilege to understand what is meant when people talk about the power of the human spirit. I have been to the most desolate of places in the worst of all possible times and I have seen individual acts of heroism. People say to me, ‘you must have got terribly depressed during your time as a foreign correspondent.’ I would not say that was the case though. I have seen things that you don’t see in everyday life. That has been the really memorable thing about my job.”
So what advice would he have for those hoping to follow in his footsteps? ‘Firstly, you need that desire. You have to feel that this is the thing that you want to do. Working that out can be quite difficult. I get a lot of letters and emails saying, ‘I want to become a presenter.’ That is not journalism. It is the end point of journalism. I would much rather people ask me how to become a reporter because a lot of journalism is hard slog. Also, it is less about qualifications although there are one or two postgraduate courses that are very useful. It is more about getting yourself out there though. Are you blogging? Are you writing for your university newspaper? Have you been involved in hospital radio? All of those sorts of things. Today there are many more opportunities of that sort of thing, particularly because you have got the whole of the web to play with.’
As the face of the media changes Alagiah has to contemplate his future. ‘I am definitely happy where I am but it’s not up to me how long I stay there,’ he says. “My philosophy is that wherever I find myself I just give it 101%. I think I am finding that book-writing is a place where I am exploring my creativity. Although the books are non-fiction, I have been able to explore aspects of my life in a way that you cannot in news-journalism. I like the idea of reportage. I am dabbling with the idea of doing a novel.” Judging on the success of his previous work and his endearing nature, it is likely that future accomplishments will be plentiful and well-deserved.
Home From Home is available now in all good bookstores.
