Brian Hanrahan (born 22 March 1949,
MiddlesexMiddlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
) was the Diplomatic Editor for
BBC NewsBBC News, formerly BBC News and Current Affairs, is the department within the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the corporation's news-gathering and production of news programmes on BBC television, radio and online....
and a well known
correspondentA correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign country. The term correspondent refers to the original practice of...
. Recently, he has presented
The World at OneThe World at One, or WATO for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, which is broadcast from 1pm to 1:30pm from Monday to Friday. The programme describes itself as "Britain's leading political programme. With a reputation for rigorous and original...
on BBC Radio Four and previously appeared on regular cover shifts on the rolling news channel
BBC News 24BBC News is the BBC's 24 hour rolling news television channel in the United Kingdom. The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989...
.
Hanrahan was educated at the
St Ignatius' CollegeSt Ignatius' College is a Catholic secondary school for boys, aged 11–18, located in Enfield, Middlesex. Formerly a grammar school, only accepting boys who had passed their Eleven plus exam, its educational philosophy was originally based upon the Jesuit precept of Ignatius of Loyola:Nowadays, St...
(grammar school) in
Stamford HillStamford Hill is a place in the north of the London Borough of Hackney, England, near the border with Haringey. It is home to Europe's largest Hasidic Jewish and Adeni Jewish community.Stamford Hill is NNE of Charing Cross.-History:...
,
TottenhamTottenham is an urban area of North London, England in the London Borough of Haringey, situated north-east of Charing Cross.-History:There has been a settlement at Tottenham for over a thousand years...
. He studied politics at the
University of EssexThe University of Essex is a British campus university located near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965, the University has established itself as a centre of excellence for humanities and social sciences, and is highly rated in the United...
. He joined the BBC in 1970 as a photographic stills clerk, then became a scriptwriter, then duty editor in the TV newsroom.
Brian Hanrahan (born 22 March 1949,
MiddlesexMiddlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
) was the Diplomatic Editor for
BBC NewsBBC News, formerly BBC News and Current Affairs, is the department within the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the corporation's news-gathering and production of news programmes on BBC television, radio and online....
and a well known
correspondentA correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign country. The term correspondent refers to the original practice of...
. Recently, he has presented
The World at OneThe World at One, or WATO for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, which is broadcast from 1pm to 1:30pm from Monday to Friday. The programme describes itself as "Britain's leading political programme. With a reputation for rigorous and original...
on BBC Radio Four and previously appeared on regular cover shifts on the rolling news channel
BBC News 24BBC News is the BBC's 24 hour rolling news television channel in the United Kingdom. The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989...
.
Hanrahan was educated at the
St Ignatius' CollegeSt Ignatius' College is a Catholic secondary school for boys, aged 11–18, located in Enfield, Middlesex. Formerly a grammar school, only accepting boys who had passed their Eleven plus exam, its educational philosophy was originally based upon the Jesuit precept of Ignatius of Loyola:Nowadays, St...
(grammar school) in
Stamford HillStamford Hill is a place in the north of the London Borough of Hackney, England, near the border with Haringey. It is home to Europe's largest Hasidic Jewish and Adeni Jewish community.Stamford Hill is NNE of Charing Cross.-History:...
,
TottenhamTottenham is an urban area of North London, England in the London Borough of Haringey, situated north-east of Charing Cross.-History:There has been a settlement at Tottenham for over a thousand years...
. He studied politics at the
University of EssexThe University of Essex is a British campus university located near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965, the University has established itself as a centre of excellence for humanities and social sciences, and is highly rated in the United...
. He joined the BBC in 1970 as a photographic stills clerk, then became a scriptwriter, then duty editor in the TV newsroom. He became the BBC's Northern Ireland correspondent. He was a member of an amateur dramatic society.
When on
HMS HermesHMS Hermes was a Centaur-class British aircraft carrier, the last of the postwar conventional aircraft carriers commissioned into the Royal Navy.-Construction and modifications:...
, he was responsible for one of the most memorable journalistic moments of the
Falklands WarThe Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict/Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
, with the line I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back. This got him around the reporting restrictions placed by military intelligence, so that he could say that all the British Harrier jets had returned safely without saying how many there were.
In the 1980s, he was based in
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
, then in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
in the 1980s and 1990s, commentating on the handover of
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
in 1997, as well as
Yasser ArafatMohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority, and leader of the Fatah political...
's funeral in 2004.
Political views
Hanrahan is an outspoken critic of
communismCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
and claims that "Europe has a lot to thank
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the second-to-last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991...
for".
Publications
- I Counted Them All Out And I Counted Them All Back (with Robert Fox, defence correspondent for the Evening Standard
The London Evening Standard is a free local daily newspaper, published in tabloid format in London, England. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the southeast of England, with coverage of national and international news and a strong emphasis on City of London finance...
), August 1982, BBC Books.
External links
Audio clips
Video clips