MEDIA PERSONALITY
George Alagiah OBE
Since Winning the EMMA Award
George Alagiah is a British Newsreader, Journalist and Television Presenter who in 2000, was part of the BBC team that collected a BAFTA award for its coverage of the Kosovo conflict. George fronted the BBC One O’Clock News, Nine O’Clock News and BBC Four News, before being one of the main presenters of the Six O’Clock News in 2003. George anchored news programmes from Sri Lanka following the December 2004 tsunami, as well as reporting from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and from Pakistan following the South Asian earthquake in 2005.
George was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours for his services to journalism and became the first official Patron of the Fairtrade Foundation in the UK from 2002 to 2009. In 2010, he received the Outstanding Achievement in Television Award at The Asian Awards. His debut novel, “The Burning Land,” was shortlisted for a Society of Authors award. George sadly died from bowel cancer on July 24, 2023, at the age of 67. His reputation as a respected and fearless journalist, known for his empathy and ability to connect with people from all walks of life, even in the most challenging situations, has been highlighted across the world.
Background (Before 1998)
Born in Sri Lanka to Ceylon Tamil parents before moving to Ghana and England in childhood, George Alagiah joined the BBC as a foreign affairs correspondent in 1989 and became Africa correspondent. A multi-award-winning journalist, he won numerous accolades for his reports on the famine and war in Somalia in the early 1990s.
George was also nominated for a Bafta in 1994 for covering Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds of Northern Iraq. In 1994, he was named Amnesty International’s Journalist of the Year for reporting on the civil war in Burundi. He also won the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Award for Television Journalist of the Year.
