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Clive Myrie photographed in London
Clive Myrie photographed at the Langham hotel, London: ‘America is the most alien place I’ve ever reported from.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer
Clive Myrie photographed at the Langham hotel, London: ‘America is the most alien place I’ve ever reported from.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

Clive Myrie: ‘You can always do more to increase diversity’

This article is more than 6 years old
Interview by

The veteran news presenter on the importance of Trevor McDonald, the despair of the Yemeni people and why we should treasure the BBC

Born in Bolton, Lancashire, in 1964, Clive Myrie has worked for the BBC as a news presenter and an award-winning foreign correspondent for more than 30 years. His career has taken him to war zones in Croatia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently, his reports from Bangladesh and Yemen on News at Ten have made harrowing viewing. His account of the desperate flight from Myanmar of more than half-a-million Rohingya Muslims showed the refugee crisis morphing into a full-blown humanitarian disaster. A few weeks later, his rare, shocking footage from inside war-torn Yemen revealed an abandoned people on the brink of starvation and despair.

You have reported from some of the world’s most troubled regions; what is your perspective on the situation in Myanmar and Yemen?
What struck me, particularly with Yemen, was this sense that there is no one out there with any influence who actually cares. At least the Rohingya are being given safe haven by the people across the border in Bangladesh. In Yemen, that is not the case. The borders are sealed, the air space is under the control of Saudi Arabia, you can’t escape. You have people trying to escape to Somalia: that’s how bad it is.

What should the international community be doing?
It feels to me that Saudi Arabia is being allowed to prosecute the war in this way because of the perceived threat from Iran. One can understand the Saudis responding to the attack on Riyadh airport by closing down the airspace but that in turn prevents aid getting into Yemen, which affects millions of people. There have been various attempts to bring both sides together but there seems to be no real determination to get talks off the ground again. A diplomatic track needs to be much more vigorously pursued. It feels as though the world is turning away and millions of civilians are being left in the middle, trapped.

What’s the hardest aspect for you of reporting on these desperate situations? Is it the children?
It’s seeing people who are suffering, whether children or adults, and having this sense that no one is bothering to do anything about it. Obviously, if you see a malnourished child in an intensive-care ward struggling to breathe, it’s horrific. But when you know help is on the way you can deal with it. I was walking along one day at a refugee camp and saw a little girl at the side of the road. She had her little brother with her who was limp and floppy, almost dead. We managed to get them to the Unicef hospital. He was terribly malnourished, but within four or five days, after a dose of Plumpy’Nut [a high-protein peanut-based paste for treatment of acute malnutrition], he was absolutely fine. What I find most heartbreaking is when there is no one to help these children in time.

Is it hard, when you get home, to get places like Yemen and its people out of your head?
The images stay with you. One piece we did from Yemen featured a girl I will never forget. She was no more than eight or nine. She was in a beautiful long blue dress, as though she had put on her very best clothes for some reason. Nicky, the cameraman, panned down from her face to her feet and we saw she only had one leg and she didn’t have a prosthetic. A shell from an airstrike had blown her leg off. That image, probably of all of them, stands out the most for me.

You weren’t drawn into the recent controversy over BBC presenters’ pay because you didn’t feature on the list of highest paid. What’s your view?
As far as I am concerned, the salary that I get is way above what your average teacher or doctor or nurse or policeman – someone doing a proper job, frankly – would get. So I am happy where I am. Certain other people get more – well, good luck to them.

So you think it’s a storm in a teacup?
No, because public sector workers have had just a 1% pay rise for several years now and when they see some of the salaries at the BBC, which is publicly funded, there can be a lot of anger. I understand that.

You’ve worked at the BBC for pretty much your whole career. Do you feel loyal to the corporation?
Yeah, I do, actually. I think it is an organisation with its heart in the right place absolutely 100% and I defend it to the hilt. It makes mistakes, like any other organisation, but it should be treasured because of what it brings to people’s everyday lives. I don’t think enough people appreciate that. They will miss us when we’re gone.

You grew up in Bolton in the 1960s and 70s. Where has your accent gone?
When I joined the BBC in 1986, the only northern voice you heard was Andy Kershaw. At Sussex University, I was surrounded by people from the home counties, so my flat vowels got elongated because it felt as if that was what I needed to do. Now, of course, the flatter my vowels, the better off I would probably be. But those were very different days.

Myrie reporting from Yemen. Photograph: BBC

How did you get interested in news and current affairs?
By watching Trevor McDonald on television when I was a small boy. Here was this guy who looked like me, on the TV, travelling the world and looking like he was having a really interesting time. I thought, maybe I could do that. The only other times you saw black people on the television would be on the news when there was something horrific happening in Africa or some crime story. Or in shows like The Black and White Minstrel Show.

How much have things changed as far as black presenters are concerned since Sir Trevor was on the screen?
They’re a lot better. There are far more positive role models out there who can signal to a young viewer that this could be a career for them. But in news broadcasting there are a limited number of slots out front, so it is always going to be difficult to break in, as much for a white, working-class person as for a black person.

Could broadcasters do more to increase diversity?
You can always do more and this idea that managers and bosses tend to recruit in their own image is something I know is being looked at very closely by the BBC, ITN and Channel 4.

You’ve worked all over the world. Which posting do you have the fondest memories of?
Being based in Los Angeles during the Clinton years. The USA, pre-9/11, was a much more carefree place and the Clinton White House was incredible to cover. Because I was based in Los Angeles, I wasn’t just covering hard news; I covered Central America, hurricanes in Honduras, the Oscars, three times, so there was a breadth of story-telling. Strangely enough, I would say America is the most alien place I have ever reported from. I think we have far more in common with northern Europeans than we will ever have with Americans.

What’s the most memorable moment from your life in broadcasting?
The victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 US elections. I was covering the story from Morehouse College in Georgia. It’s where Martin Luther King studied, Samuel L Jackson, Spike Lee – they all went there. Everyone around me was in tears and I remember saying, before handing back to David Dimbleby in London: “I have to tell you, it’s a privilege for me to be here at this particular moment in time”; as soon as I said that, I thought: “Damn, I’ve crossed the line. This is the BBC and I’ve become too emotional.” Then I turned around to see the ABC News reporter Steve Osunsami in tears live on air. So I thought: “I haven’t crossed any line at all.”

How and where did you learn to love classical music and opera?
During my schooldays at Haywood Grammar School in Bolton. We had a fantastic music department. I played violin and trumpet and our school orchestra went on these great tours and even made records as The Bolton Sound. It gave me a lifelong appreciation of classical music and opera. I go to Verona Opera Festival every year with my wife and a group of friends. It’s always a joy.

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