Clive Myrie in conversation with James Rodgers - Part of Summer Derby Book Festival

Description

One of the UK’s best-known presenters of BBC news and current affairs, Clive Myrie dreamt of being a journalist from his teenage years as a Bolton paperboy, reading all the newspapers cover to cover. He has reported on many of the major global stories for thirty years (most recently from Ukraine). He is also the host of Mastermind and has presented series on travelling in Italy and about the Caribbean.

His deeply personal memoir, Everything is Everything, recounts his family history and how this has influenced his view of the world. The child of Windrush generation parents, his great grandfather helped build the Panama Canal, whilst a great uncle fought in the First World War and later became a prominent Jamaican police detective. Proud of his roots, but determined not to be defined by his background, he reflects on how being black has affected his perspective on the issues he’s reported on.

Clive will be in conversation with his former BBC colleague James Rodgers, a journalist and BBC Foreign Correspondent for 20 years reporting from Moscow, Brussels, Gaza, post 9/11 New York and Washington and the Iraq war. Since 2012, he has taught Journalism at City, University of London, lecturing on the History of Journalism and the Reporting of Armed Conflict. His latest book, Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin, tells the story of western news coverage of Russia, from the coverage of the siege of the Winter Palace and a plot to kill Stalin, to the Chernobyl explosion and the Salisbury poison scandal and how these accounts have been a huge influence on how the West understands Russia.