Roger Harrabin
Encyclopedia
Roger Harrabin is the BBC
’s Environment Analyst, and one of their senior journalists on the environment and energy. He has broadcast on environmental issues since the 1980s and has won many awards in print, TV and radio. He has travelled widely reporting on environment and energy and interviewed many leading figures including Margaret Thatcher
, Tony Blair
, Al Gore
, John Kerry
, Ban Ki-Moon
, James Lovelock
, Sonia Gandhi
, Gordon Brown
and Bjorn Lomborg. Aside from his specialism he covered many major general news stories including the Broadwater Farm riot
s, the sinking in the Thames of the pleasure boat Marchioness
, the assassination of Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin
, the Soho pub bombing in 1999 and the 2003 Istanbul bombings
. He is a Visiting Fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford and an Associate Press Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge.
, England
where his father Hubert ran a building firm with his wife Sylvia and brother Harry. He attended Stivichall Primary School and King Henry VIII School. He then studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge
, where he was president of the Junior Common Room
. He started a college newspaper.
He began his career on the Coventry Evening Telegraph
, where he gained a reputation for bringing fresh topics to the news agenda. He developed a specialism reporting on the city’s ethnic minority population, who were previously largely ignored in the media. He won a prize in the British Press Awards
in 1980 for a series of features tracing the roots of Coventry Asians back to Pakistan
and India
.
He joined the independent Thames TV News as a producer whilst also freelancing for several years as a Saturday sports sub-editor in Fleet Street
on The News of the World and The Sunday Mirror. During a spell at BBC Radio London he revealed how the Metropolitan Police
was training its riot control officers using Roman Army tactics.
, where he won a succession of Media Natura Environment Awards for reports on issues related to the environment and development. He also won the One World Media award after revealing how changes in trade rules would affect sugar workers in Guyana
, and a Sony Silver Award for reports on development dilemmas in Africa
. He was shortlisted for Sony Reporter of the Year.
The Today Programme
created a roving role for him, and he spent a decade there travelling widely, reporting and organising series on issues like globalisation, health and the role of women. He won an award for an investigation into flower-growing in Kenya
which showed that multi-national companies tended to take better care of their workers than local firms. He won another award for a feature on child labour in Bangladesh
which demonstrated that for many girls, work in a “sweatshop” was preferable to the other alternatives of prostitution or working as a domestic servant in the Persian Gulf
.
In 2004 the BBC created the role of Environment Analyst so Harrabin could work across all media. He did reports for Newsnight
on uncertainty in climate forecasting and on geoengineering
to combat climate change. He won the Media Natura Award for TV documentaries for Gas Muzzlers, a film on green energy investment in President Bush’s America.
In 2007 he shared the Media Natura TV News award for films on the Ten o’Clock News. One report from Bangladesh
highlighted the need for climate adaptation - a topic little discussed at the time. Another report revealed how China
was building two power stations a week. A third demonstrated why the Chinese need to increase energy production to tackle poverty. It also traced a Chinese-made energy-saving product - dryerballs – and showed how some people in the West were blaming China for its emissions created during the manufacture of goods for export. Harrabin popularised discussion of these “embedded” emissions, and showed that there were problems in all methodologies comparing international greenhouse gas emissions.
In September 2010 he presented Uncertain Climate, a highly-praised two-part documentary on Radio 4, which examined media depictions of climate change. He also reported for TV from a Chinese cave on how scientists are using stalagmites to decipher past monsoon patterns. Later that year he completed a documentary outlining the difficulties faced by organisers and delegates at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
in Copenhagen
.
Harrabin was founder presenter of BBC Radio 4
's environment magazine "Costing the Earth" which was created to bring a lighter touch to environmental issues and to question environmental goals.
, he led a King’s Fund paper “Health in The News” which researched the number of people needing to fall victim to a health problem for it to merit an item on national news. It showed that public health issues were massively under-reported compared with their impact on people’s lives. Colleagues subsequently credited him with devising “Harrabin’s Law” on disproportionate media coverage. On returning to the BBC he led pan-BBC reporting on a public survey which suggested that people in the UK were much more ready to accept tougher measures on smoking, drinking and obesity than previously believed. Public health has since risen up the agenda in the UK for government and media.
increased road safety targets for children.
Whilst on sabbatical at Wolfson College, Cambridge Harrabin set up the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme (CMEP) with Dr Joe Smith, now of the Open University
. They worked in partnership with other BBC staff organising seminars with a broad range of views to stimulate discussion of the BBC's coverage of global Risk issues covering the environment, economics, and society.
After one seminar, the BBC concluded that as all major governments had accepted the risk of climate change, arguments about the science of climate change should play a smaller part in the media than previously, whilst still being aired from time to time.
, London
with his wife, with whom he has three children. He has two younger brothers.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
’s Environment Analyst, and one of their senior journalists on the environment and energy. He has broadcast on environmental issues since the 1980s and has won many awards in print, TV and radio. He has travelled widely reporting on environment and energy and interviewed many leading figures including Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
, Ban Ki-Moon
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before going on to be Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he...
, James Lovelock
James Lovelock
James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
, Sonia Gandhi
Sonia Gandhi
Sonia Gandhi is an Italian-born Indian politician and the President of the Indian National Congress, one of the major political parties of India. She is the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi...
, Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
and Bjorn Lomborg. Aside from his specialism he covered many major general news stories including the Broadwater Farm riot
Broadwater Farm riot
The Broadwater Farm riot occurred around the Broadwater Farm area of Tottenham, North London, on 6 October 1985.The events of the day were dominated by two deaths. The first was that of Cynthia Jarrett, an African-Caribbean woman who died the previous day from a stroke during a police search of her...
s, the sinking in the Thames of the pleasure boat Marchioness
Marchioness disaster
The Marchioness disaster occurred on the River Thames in London in the early hours of 20 August 1989. The pleasure boat Marchioness sank after being run down by the dredger Bowbelle, near Cannon Street Railway Bridge. There were 131 people on the Marchioness. Some were members of the crew, some...
, the assassination of Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin
Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin took place on November 4, 1995 at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv...
, the Soho pub bombing in 1999 and the 2003 Istanbul bombings
2003 Istanbul bombings
The 2003 Istanbul bombings were four truck bomb attacks carried out on November 15, 2003 and November 20, 2003, in Istanbul, Turkey, leaving 57 people dead, and 700 wounded. Several men have been convicted for their involvement.- First bombings :...
. He is a Visiting Fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford and an Associate Press Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge.
Early life and career
Harrabin was born and raised in CoventryCoventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
where his father Hubert ran a building firm with his wife Sylvia and brother Harry. He attended Stivichall Primary School and King Henry VIII School. He then studied English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge
St Catharine's College, Cambridge
St. Catharine’s College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1473, the college is often referred to informally by the nickname "Catz".-History:...
, where he was president of the Junior Common Room
Common Room (university)
In some universities in the United Kingdom — particularly collegiate universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and Durham — students and the academic body are organised into common rooms...
. He started a college newspaper.
He began his career on the Coventry Evening Telegraph
Coventry Evening Telegraph
The Coventry Telegraph is a local English tabloid newspaper. Originally called The Midland Daily Telegraph, it was founded in 1891 by William Isaac Iliffe as Coventry's first daily newspaper, a four-page broadsheet newspaper originally sold for a half penny...
, where he gained a reputation for bringing fresh topics to the news agenda. He developed a specialism reporting on the city’s ethnic minority population, who were previously largely ignored in the media. He won a prize in the British Press Awards
British Press Awards
The British Press Awards is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of British journalism. Established in the 1970s, honours are voted on by a panel of journalists and newspaper executives...
in 1980 for a series of features tracing the roots of Coventry Asians back to Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
He joined the independent Thames TV News as a producer whilst also freelancing for several years as a Saturday sports sub-editor in Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
on The News of the World and The Sunday Mirror. During a spell at BBC Radio London he revealed how the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
was training its riot control officers using Roman Army tactics.
BBC career
Harrabin joined BBC radio’s The World at OneThe World At One
The 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...
, where he won a succession of Media Natura Environment Awards for reports on issues related to the environment and development. He also won the One World Media award after revealing how changes in trade rules would affect sugar workers in Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
, and a Sony Silver Award for reports on development dilemmas in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. He was shortlisted for Sony Reporter of the Year.
The Today Programme
Today programme
Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
created a roving role for him, and he spent a decade there travelling widely, reporting and organising series on issues like globalisation, health and the role of women. He won an award for an investigation into flower-growing in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
which showed that multi-national companies tended to take better care of their workers than local firms. He won another award for a feature on child labour in Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
which demonstrated that for many girls, work in a “sweatshop” was preferable to the other alternatives of prostitution or working as a domestic servant in the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
.
In 2004 the BBC created the role of Environment Analyst so Harrabin could work across all media. He did reports for Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
on uncertainty in climate forecasting and on geoengineering
Geoengineering
The concept of Geoengineering refers to the deliberate large-scale engineering and manipulation of the planetary environment to combat or counteract anthropogenic changes in atmospheric chemistry The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2007 that geoengineering options, such...
to combat climate change. He won the Media Natura Award for TV documentaries for Gas Muzzlers, a film on green energy investment in President Bush’s America.
In 2007 he shared the Media Natura TV News award for films on the Ten o’Clock News. One report from Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
highlighted the need for climate adaptation - a topic little discussed at the time. Another report revealed how China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
was building two power stations a week. A third demonstrated why the Chinese need to increase energy production to tackle poverty. It also traced a Chinese-made energy-saving product - dryerballs – and showed how some people in the West were blaming China for its emissions created during the manufacture of goods for export. Harrabin popularised discussion of these “embedded” emissions, and showed that there were problems in all methodologies comparing international greenhouse gas emissions.
In September 2010 he presented Uncertain Climate, a highly-praised two-part documentary on Radio 4, which examined media depictions of climate change. He also reported for TV from a Chinese cave on how scientists are using stalagmites to decipher past monsoon patterns. Later that year he completed a documentary outlining the difficulties faced by organisers and delegates at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 December and 18 December. The conference included the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate...
in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
.
Harrabin was founder presenter of BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
's environment magazine "Costing the Earth" which was created to bring a lighter touch to environmental issues and to question environmental goals.
Risk reporting and analysis
Harrabin's reporting is dominated by risk issues. He states that often major risk issues fail to fit news criteria of novelty, drama, conflict, personality and pictures. This leads the media, he believes, to have given the wrong level of prominence to a range of risks including MMR, dirty bombs, child abduction, transport safety, exotic diseases, UK National Health Service “crisis”, the Brent Spar oil platform, nuclear power and genetic modification. He argues that the media should find new ways of exploring long-term risk issues like preventive health and security of water, food, energy and climate.Public health Risk
During a sabbatical at Green Templeton College, OxfordGreen Templeton College, Oxford
Green Templeton College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is the university's newest college having come into existence on 1 October 2008 from the merger of Green College and Templeton College...
, he led a King’s Fund paper “Health in The News” which researched the number of people needing to fall victim to a health problem for it to merit an item on national news. It showed that public health issues were massively under-reported compared with their impact on people’s lives. Colleagues subsequently credited him with devising “Harrabin’s Law” on disproportionate media coverage. On returning to the BBC he led pan-BBC reporting on a public survey which suggested that people in the UK were much more ready to accept tougher measures on smoking, drinking and obesity than previously believed. Public health has since risen up the agenda in the UK for government and media.
Transport Risk
Harrabin’s investigations into transport safety expenditure on Today provoked a shift in the UK national debate. He questioned media demands for increased rail safety investment because trains were already statistically much safer than roads, which were starved of funds. After his Panorama examined the UK’s poor record in child road safety the Prime Minister Tony BlairTony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
increased road safety targets for children.
Risk advisory role
Harrabin co-wrote the BBC’s guidance on reporting on Risk with the head of BBC Politics, Sue Inglish. It calls for news instincts to be tempered by statistical perspective.Whilst on sabbatical at Wolfson College, Cambridge Harrabin set up the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme (CMEP) with Dr Joe Smith, now of the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
. They worked in partnership with other BBC staff organising seminars with a broad range of views to stimulate discussion of the BBC's coverage of global Risk issues covering the environment, economics, and society.
After one seminar, the BBC concluded that as all major governments had accepted the risk of climate change, arguments about the science of climate change should play a smaller part in the media than previously, whilst still being aired from time to time.
Family
Harrabin currently lives in HampsteadHampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with his wife, with whom he has three children. He has two younger brothers.