George Alagiah, one of the BBC’s longest-serving and most respected journalists, has died at 67, nine years after being diagnosed with cancer.
A statement from his agent said he “died peacefully today, surrounded by his family and loved ones”.
A fixture on British TV news for more than three decades, he presented the BBC News at Six for the past 20 years.
Before that, he was an award-winning foreign correspondent, reporting from countries ranging from Rwanda to Iraq.
He was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2014 and revealed in October 2022 that it had spread further.
Paying tribute, his agent, Mary Greenham, said: “George was deeply loved by everybody who knew him, whether it was a friend, a colleague or a member of the public.
“He simply was a wonderful human being. My thoughts are with Fran, the boys and his wider family,” she said.
Alagiah died earlier on Monday, but “fought until the bitter end”, his agent added.
BBC director general Tim Davie said: “Across the BBC, we are all incredibly sad to hear the news about George. We are thinking of his family at this time.
“He was more than just an outstanding journalist, audiences could sense his kindness, empathy and wonderful humanity. He was loved by all and we will miss him enormously.”
BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson tweeted: “A gentler, kinder, more insightful and braver friend and colleague it would be hard to find.”
BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet called him “a great broadcaster”, a “kind colleague” and “a thoughtful journalist”.
Clive Myrie, presenting the BBC News at One, said: “On a personal note, George touched all of us here in the newsroom, with his kindness and generosity, his warmth and good humour. We loved him here at BBC News, and I loved him as a mentor, colleague and friend.”
Fellow journalists including LBC’s Sangita Myska, the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar and Mark Austin of Sky News were among those to also pay tribute.
Austin tweeted: “This breaks my heart. A good man, a rival on the foreign correspondent beat but above all a friend. If good journalism is about empathy, and it often is, George Alagiah had it in spades.”
Myska noted Alagiah’s influence on British Asian reporters.
“Growing up, when the BBC’s George Alagiah was on TV my dad would shout “George is on!”. We’d run to watch the man who inspired a generation of British Asian journalists. That scene was replicated across the UK. We thank you, George. RIP xx”
Former BBC North American editor Jon Sopel wrote: “Tributes will rightly be paid to a fantastic journalist and brilliant broadcaster – but George was the most decent, principled, kindest, most honourable man I have ever worked with. What a loss.”
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner recalled Alagiah visiting him in hospital after he was shot and critically injured in an al-Qaeda attack in Saudia Arabia in 2004.
“He brought me his book A Passage to Africa, and we talked for hours about the continent he loved and spent so much of his career covering. A true journalist and a great author.”
Source: BBC
