Samira Ahmed

Honorary Graduate — Tuesday 22nd January 2019

Just a few weeks after I began my Newspaper Journalism diploma course at City in the autumn of 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. And perhaps the only regret in my life is that I didn’t get on a plane to Berlin that weekend, like one of my fellow students who came back with a piece of the wall and the experience of being at a unique moment in history.

Inspired by that though I went travelling on my own through the former East Germany as it was undergoing a rapid transformation and then worked for a fascinating year as a news anchor at Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin.

Now we all know that Europe, including the United Kingdom, is full of renewed forces of hatred and intolerance. Russia sows new mischief. I don’t think we could have believed it back then. I’ve learned that nothing is ever really over. It bides its time and it comes back if we are careless.

I made good friends from all over the world. With whom I remember drinking the worst coffee of my life from the strange ancient machine in the old Journalism building. There was a kind of reckless endangerment in doing so. I used to take the bus in from Clapham Junction at 7 am to swim in that marvellous Edwardian indoor pool on Northampton Square.

I learned from the experience of wise older journalists who taught at City, including those who had witnessed first hand the horrors of the Second World War and the coming of the Iron Curtain. I learned from one particular visiting woman speaker from the Planned Parenthood Federation the power of speaking your mind based on your own evidence and assessment, and defying consensus or assumed truths.

I’ve always tried to apply the principles of critical thinking to writing news that engaged and informed my fellow citizens. Based on thorough research and data. Some of it great fun — like interviewing film stars and directors. But some has been difficult reporting: From the racist abuse of Bosnian refugees resettled in Britain in the 1990s, to the deliberate targeting of lesbian women for rape and murder in South Africa. And though the world seems a less optimistic place than when I graduated, those principles of critical thinking still apply to how I work.

There are other battles too that require the same approach. I honestly had no idea in 1989 that 30 years later we’d uncover such shocking levels of unequal pay including at the BBC. That battle is continuing, believe me. But I accept this honour with delight as recognition for my enduring belief in the value of ethical journalism. The truth is still out there and it needs all the help it can get.

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