George Alagiah

    (£5,500 - £7,000)

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Biography

1998 Media personality of the year and an impressive CV, George is one of the best known faces of news broadcating and brings his unique and refreshing style to any event.

George Alagiah joined the BBC's Six O'Clock News in January 2003, which he co-presents with Sophie Raworth and in March 2002, he launched BBC FOUR's international news programme.

Before going behind the studio desk, George Alagiah 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 is a specialist on Africa and the developing world.

George Alagiah has reported on: trade in human organs in India; the murder of street children in Brazil; the civil war and famine in Somalia; the genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath; the plight of the marsh Arabs in southern Iraq; the civil wars in Afghanistan, Liberia and Sierra Leone; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa; the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire; the effects of Hurricane Mitch on Honduras; the Kosovan refugee crisis; the NATO liberation of Pristina; the international intervention in East Timor; the farm invasions in Zimbabwe; the intifada in the West Bank; and the aftermath of the terror attacks on New York.

Documentaries and features include reports on: why affirmative action in America is a 'Lost Cause' for the Assignment programme; Saddam Hussein's genocidal campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq for Newsnight; on the last reunion of the veterans of Dunkirk; and a BBC ONE special on the trial and conviction of Jill Dando's murderer.

Among prominent figures interviewed by George 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.

He has won several awards including: the Critics Award and the Golden Nymph Award at the Monte Carlo Television Festival (1992); award for Best International Report at the Royal Television Society (1993); commendation from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (1993); Amnesty International's Best TV Journalist award (1994); the One World Broadcasting Trust award (1994); the James Cameron Memorial Trust award (1995); and the Bayeux Award for War Reporting (1996).

In 1998 he was voted Media Personality of the Year at the Ethnic Minority Media Awards. In 2000 he was part of the BBC team which collected a BAFTA award for its coverage of the Kosovo conflict.

George Alagiah first joined the BBC in 1989 after seven years in print journalism with South Magazine. He has contributed to several British newspapers including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the Daily Express.  He has spoken at the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Society for Arts and at the Royal Overseas League. His appearances at literary festivals include Cheltenham, Keswick, Hay-on-Wye and London.

His first book, A Passage to Africa, was published by Little, Brown & Company in September 2001. It won the Madoc Award at the 2002 Hay Literary Festival. Alagiah's essay Shaking the Foundations has been published by the BBC in its book on the aftermath of September 11.

George Alagiah was born in Sri Lanka in November 1955. His primary education was in Ghana where his parents moved in 1961. He attended secondary school at St John's College in Portsmouth, England and is a graduate of Durham University.