Vin Ray

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Vin Ray is a member of the BBC's Journalism Board and the first Director of the BBC College of Journalism. [1]

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London, and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total, 16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff are included.

Contents

History in the BBC

Ray joined the BBC in CEEFAX in 1987 and moved on to work as a producer on the Nine O'Clock News under the editorship of Mark Thompson.

As a foreign field producer, Ray worked on many of the big stories of the early 1990s, including the first Gulf War, the Gorbachev coup and the Bosnian war. In the UK, he was in charge of the field operation for the resignation of Margaret Thatcher, as well as numerous IRA bombings.

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He became TV Foreign Editor in 1993 and two years later became the bi-medial Foreign Editor across domestic TV and radio.

In 1996 he was asked to merge the Newsgathering operations of the World Service and the domestic News and Current Affairs, becoming World News Editor, the first person to take charge of the BBC's entire foreign newsgathering operations.

Influenced by the deaths and injuries of colleagues—he was with Martin Bell in Sarajevo when he was injured—Vin was instrumental in helping introduce safety equipment, courses and counselling services across the industry.

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Sarajevo is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area, including Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and nearby municipalities, is home to 555,210 inhabitants. Nestled within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of the Balkans.

In 1999, as Executive Editor, he was asked to look at improving the storytelling skills of the BBC's reporters and correspondents. He also had responsibility for recruiting and coaching on-air talent for BBC News and gave many of the BBC's best known correspondents their first jobs in foreign news.

He was described as 'a revered teacher' by Andrew Marr who, along with many others, he trained and coached through his transition to broadcasting.

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Authorship

Vin Ray is the author of two books:

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References

  1. ↑ Press release, bbc.co.uk, 10 October 2004
  2. ↑ Amazon.com entry for The Television News Handbook

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