Kathryn Adie OBE
Doctor of the University (HonDUniv)
Year conferred: 2002
Kate Adie is the former Chief News Correspondent, BBC.
She started working as a studio technician with BBC local radio after graduating in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She moved from local radio in Durham, as a producer, to Bristol; and specialised in farming and arts programmes. At BBC Plymouth, she went into news as a regional TV reporter, subsequently working in Southampton and Brighton.
She moved to BBC TV national news in 1979 and covered general news stories, many abroad and was Court Correspondent for two years. She's reported from most of the world's trouble spots and won awards for her coverage of Northern Ireland and the American bombing in Tripoli and Tiananmen Square. On her return from China in June 1989 she was promoted to Chief News Correspondent.
RTS Awards, 1981, 1987 and 1989. Monte Carlo International Television Awards 1981 and 1990. The BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award 1990.
She was awarded the OBE in 1993, is Honorary Professor of Journalism at Sunderland University and is a Fellow of the Institute of Journalists and the Royal Television Society.
She has covered the Gulf War, the war in former Yugoslavia and events in the Gulf, Armenia, Albania, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and China.
Her autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers, was published in 2002, and Corsets to Camouflage - Women and War, was published in autumn 2003, followed by Nobody's Child in 2005, and Into Danger in 2008.
Kate returned to Brookes to give a lecture on 4th November 2009.
