Kate Adie Quotes (40 Quotes)

I worked in Bosnia, where 77 journalists were killed and 400 wounded, and at the BBC we have just lost a news producer in Africa.

My job is to get to the heart of a story, to find out what's really going on; to get it verified and, then, to get it out to as many people as possible as fast as.

I have never been attracted to any kind of violence.

Having had loving people who brought me up, and then I find another set of people. That really is a double blessing.

and I owe her a huge amount for that. I don't have any conflict there. Some of my foundlings said this is the person who looked after you, who wiped your nose and held your hand and cuddled you when you fell down. This is your mum. This is it.

The trains were never forgotten, but the extent of their influence only came to light with the arrival of the internet and the subsequent flowering of genealogical research. This obsession with roots will be felt especially keenly by foundlings, who often have no way of exploring their family histories. I notice that genealogical sites now have warnings on them saying people should be ready for little surprises, ... They're not all going to find themselves descended from King Henry VIII or Richard Cur de Lion or Wellington. This is rather strange because it was pretty taken for granted a few generations ago that families had all kinds of little moments where things had gone not according to the book. It was just one of those things. You tried to accommodate it. There was no social welfare. You just had to sort it out within villages, the families, the parish. Children went to the workhouse, but people knew about it. Nowadays, there's a kind of surprise that these cases were so commonplace.

If I'm in danger then it's usually my fault and it's up to me to get myself out of it. I am not in it just to get an adrenalin rush. No way!

On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information.

I've never been one to sit around and eat my heart out. Life's too short.

In Sierra Leone last year there was just the two of us hanging out of a helicopter and, when we were in Bosnia, I drove an armoured vehicle, thousands of miles.

I wrote in the book very specifically what I wanted to write about, period, and left it at.

I sailed through my childhood with a complete lack of any drama.

Up until about 12 years ago we never, ever, wore flak jacket or helmets but now the nastiness has got worse.

Historians say this will lead to civil conflict. It doesn't lead to girls being treasured. It leads to them being traded as commodities and stolen.

It's totally mistaken to suppose that an armed escort is going to give a journalist any protection - on the contrary, journalists who turn up surrounded by armed personnel are just turning themselves into targets and in even worse danger.

Not so much deliberate as, I think, instinctive. There is a right time to go looking. Some do it when they are very young, others take a few years. That's why you should never be pressurised by other people. There's a time for everyone. A lot of things probably come together subconsciously, and we say, 'I'm going to do it now.'

Now children as young as nine carry AK47s which can kill 30 people in seconds.

I was timid and frightened as a child. Yours truly did not shin up mountains or do any other kind of adventurous stuff.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

it's strange to think of yourself as an only child and then suddenly find yourself with three siblings. Does Adie ever feel like an outsider when the rest share a history that she doesn't Curiously, I went to a wedding quite near the start, and when we got to the church this charming man came up and said, 'Bride or groom' ... Groom You're with the groom

I don't sit there and speculate. I'm not that sort of person. It wastes time, actually.

I have nothing to do with the selection of stories. I'm the reporter.

When you are covering a life-or-death struggle, as British reporters were in 1940, it is legitimate and right to go along with military censorship, and in fact in situations like that there wouldn't be any press without the censorship.

It wasn't glamorous in my day. In the regions, reporters were seen as such low life that they didn't merit their name in the Radio Times. Now people are interested in being famous. I never gave it a thought.

I keep telling myself to calm down, to take less of an interest in things and not to get so excited, but I still care a lot about liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and fairness in journalism.

Beslan, where the Russian authorities stopped live coverage of the school being stormed, was an illustration of the progress we still have to make.

Hair is also a problem. I remember once, when I was reporting from Beirut at the height of the civil war, someone wrote in to the BBC complaining about my appearance.

The superstition was that disability of any sort was the mark of the devil. The phrases are in languages throughout Europe the devil's hoof, the devil's horn mark. It reaches back to early Christianity and the middle ages. Where a child was born out of wedlock, the church cooked up the impression that you'd done something sinful, and something dreadful would result. You will still find, particularly in Greece, people doing a little sign when they see a very badly disabled child it needs warding off.

Somewhere in the twentieth century we stopped regarding children as property and started seeing them as people.

I will never retire.

No two wars are identical.

People always seem to assume that we have a full, back-up support team - make-up, costume and a driver - but usually, in a war zone, there's only me and the cameraman.

There is an odd grammar in that sentence, which seems wrong, but is actually precise. Close siblings were less common, ... It seemed.

Maybe she simply cared in a self-protective way. Doing something on impulse, ... well, it can work, but there are a lot of examples that say, 'Better to leave well alone and do what you can as a reporter.' You do get into situations where you think, 'What should I do Shouldn't I intervene Shouldn't I do something' I think if you get to that point you have to make a decision. I've said to people, if you feel it's wrong just being a reporter and you can't do enough, well it's time to become an aid worker and train to be someone who really knows what to do. No good standing around snapping a notebook.

Only the Brits do this as for the military from the rest of Europe and NATO - you could die in front of them and they would take no notice.

I was sent to a nice Church of England girls' school and at that time, after university, a woman was expected to become a teacher, a nurse or a missionary - prior to marriage.

I remember she had these long, lovely nails with red varnish, in the middle of this shitty place we were in

I also read modern novels - I have just had to read 60 as I am one of the judges for the Orange Fiction Prize.

I don't want to be involved in endless media gossip.

The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it.