Having joined the BBC as a News Trainee in the Midland Region, Rick worked as a reporter, presenter and producer based in Birmingham before moving to Television Centre in London. There he was involved in the coverage of many major events in the seventies, eighties and nineties, including the miners’ strike, seven general elections, the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign and The Falklands War when he was TV Foreign Editor in charge of international coverage.
He moved back to BBC Birmingham to become the Head of News, Current Affairs and Local TV and Radio Programmes in the Midland Region, before moving back to London as Head of Newsgathering for the World Service, helping to launch the 24-hour channel BBC World. His work has been recognised with awards from the Royal Television Society and BAFTA.
In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the state broadcasters in Eastern Europe asked the BBC to help them change into independent public broadcasters, and Rick was asked to organise training programmes, first in Poland, then elsewhere in the former Communist bloc. After leaving the BBC he continued to organise training and development projects in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and for many years was the Visiting Professor for Broadcast Journalism at Birmingham City University.
Writing for Broadcast Journalists
With an MA in English for the University of Oxford, Rick has always been interested in the use of language in broadcast news. His book ‘Writing for Broadcast Journalists’, published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis, is a standard work in university media departments and radio and TV newsrooms.
