JOHN SIMPSON

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JOHN SIMPSON

• The
• Tiananmen Square

By Kym Leo
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John Simpson
ACTION ADDICT

• John Simpson has seen enough horrors to last
  anyone a lifetime and his dreams are sometimes
  haunted by images of death and destruction. But
  Simpson says he has never lost his zest for life.

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Who Is He?

• JOHN SIMPSON - BBCs World Affairs Editor
• Internationally renowned war journalist
• He has met many of the most famous and notorious
  political leaders of our time, from Ayatollah
  Khomeini to Yasser Arafat from Colonel Ghaddafi
  to Saddam Hussein, and from Fidel Castro to a
  string of presidents and prime ministers.

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Compared to Michael Owen, Premiership Footballer

• In journalism, as in the equally competitive
  world of football, there is an acceptance that
  Simpson's nose can usually detect the right place
  and the right time.

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His Forte
Disguising himself

• International journalism
• War journalism
• Undercover reporting he infiltrated Kabul in
  Afghan disguise, reported from the cocaine areas
  of Latin America and has made a study of
  guerrilla organisations there, and those in Peru,
  Columbia and Mexico. He was the only journalist
  to have covered all the events which changed the
  world in 1989-90.

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His Reputation

• Known for pulling off major scoops
• Always at centre of action
• Been at most of the worlds trouble spots
• One of the world's most experienced and
  authoritative journalists

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His Achievements

• 1 of only 2 people to have been twice named the
  Royal Television Society's 'Journalist of the
  Year' (1991, 2000). 
• Received a CBE (1991)
• 3 BAFTA's, a Golden Nymph Award for his reporting
  of Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran (1979)
• A Peabody Trust Award for news (1999)
• A special jury's award at the Bayeux War
  Correspondents Awards (2002)
• An International Emmy Award for News Coverage for
  his report on the fall of Kabul for BBC's Ten
  O'Clock News.

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Where he left behind footprints ?

• Was in Baghdad for the Gulf War
• 1999 - reported from Belgrade during the Kosovo
  crisis
• In Kabul, Afghanistan when Taleban fell
• 1 of only a handful of journalists to remain in
  the Serbian capital when the authorities expelled
  those from NATO countries at the start of conflict

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Accidents/Injuries

• Injured in Northern Iraq in an apparent mistaken
  attack on US Special Forces convoy by one of
  their planes.
• As a young reporter he was punched by Harold
  Wilson for asking whether he was about to call an
  election.

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His Personal Fame

• He reported that he 'liberated' Kabul, walking
  into town ahead of the Northern Alliance troops
  and proclaiming his arrival on the Today
  programme.
• However, since then, he has been the subject of
  endless jokes - 'What a Burka!' from The Mirror
  'Kabul is so bracing!' from Steve Bell, even a
  Dead Ringers sketch featuring him as Homer
  Simpson.

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John Simpson in Kabul
Not quite so
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Some Criticisms of him

• During the bombing of Belgrade, he gathered his
  BBC colleagues and voted, along with the majority
  of them, to leave, then decided, at the last
  minute, to remain alone. In a famous row, Downing
  Street went on to accuse him of being an
  instrument of the Serbs even as the Serbs cut off
  his broadcasts mid-flow.

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What his friends think of him

• Arrogant but courageous.
• BBC Broadcaster John HumphrysJohn is, I
  think, the greatest foreign correspondent of his
  generation. He is absurdly courageous. Is John
  arrogant? Does a bear poo in the woods?

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What some friends think of him

• He is better at self-promotion than most," says
  Julian Manyon, Simpson's ITN counterpart in
  Kabul. "There are a lot of people in Kabul at the
  moment, and Kate Clarke, for example, is not a
  celebrated broadcaster, but as far as I could
  tell she was there ahead of John.
• He does spectacular things, but they're not
  always quite as spectacular as they're made out
  to be. There are a lot of unsung heroes in
  foreign affairs who do difficult and dangerous
  things, and they don't get the respect and
  acknowledgment that he does.

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His Odd Childhood

• Raised in an enormous Suffolk mansion by a
  domineering, single father who had an affair with
  Zsa Zsa Gabor.
• From the age of seven when his mother left, he
  was brought up by his father and his father's
  friend, Brian.
• As a schoolboy, he found the whole set-up
  intensely embarrassing I was ashamed of it,
  you know, I didn't want to be different - and he
  would deliberately drop references to his mother
  in conversation, to pretend she was still around.
  

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Family Life

• Married to Dee Kruger (20 years younger than
  Simpson), a South African television producer
  who works with him on some foreign assignments.
  Dee is producer of Simpsons World
  hosted by John Simpson. He married an
  American painter when he was 21 but divorced
  her, leaving two daughters.

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His Marriage to BBC

• 1966 joined as trainee journalist
• 1966 trainee sub-editor at Radio News. He was
  only 22 years old
• ----- Correspondent in South Africa, Brussels and
  Dublin
• ----- Diplomatic Editor
• ------Presenter of Nine Oclock News
• 1988 appointed as World Affairs Editor

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His Marriage to BBC

• Simpson joined the BBC in May 1970, at the age of
  25 within a week he had got himself punched in
  the stomach by Harold Wilson for daring to
  interrupt a stage-managed photo opportunity.
• He was promoted with spectacular speed to the
  post of political editor, but hated it so much
  that he took a demotion to present the Nine
  O'Clock News in 1980.
• That came to a swift end when he compiled a
  report on the Falklands war which appeared to
  suggest that UK foreign policy had invited the
  invasion.
• Downing Street made calls three days later he
  was taken off the air. It was 1988 before he
  returned from the wilderness to a role as a
  foreign affairs specialist. He had found his
  niche at last as Foreign Affairs Editor.

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BBC Simpsons World

• He was presenter of one of BBCs most popular
  current and political affairs program called
  Simpsons World that was broadcast in 200
  countries
• Each edition has estimated 151 million viewers
• In 5 years he has interviewed more than 100
  people in gt 40 countries

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His Books
A Mad World, My Masters(2000)
News from No Mans Land(2002)
Strange Places, Questionable people (1998)
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John Simpson

• Juggles roles of film
• and print reporter

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Tiananmen Square by John Simpson

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Tiananmen Square (3)

• Telegrammatic sentences
• Details
• Smells
• Sounds
• Senses
• Foreshadowing
• Emotive
• Metaphor
• Directness
• Evoking and vivid
• Voice
• Poetic

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Telegrammatic sentences

• Everyone moved quickly, a crowd suddenly
  animated, its actions fast and decisive,
  sometimes brutal.
• There was also something else. Something I
  hadnt seen before a reckless ferocity of
  purpose

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Details

• His eyes were rolling, and his mouth was open,
  and he was covered with blood where the skin had
  been ripped off. Only his eyes remained white
  and clear but then someone was trying to get
  them as well, and someone else began beating his
  skull until the skull came apart, and there was
  blood all over the ground, and his brains and
  still they kept on beating what was left.

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Details

• A boy rushed up to our camera and opened his
  shabby green windcheater like a black marketeer
  to reveal a row of coca-cola bottles strapped to
  his waist, filled with petrol and plugged with
  rags.
• His grip was bony and clammy.
• The voice was expressionless, epicene, metallic,
  like that of a hypnotic.

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Smells

• The smell was familiar and strong wood-smoke,
  urine and heavy disinfectant.
• The smell of petrol and burning metal and sweat
  was in the air, intoxicating and violent.

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Sounds

• the sound of a violent scraping
• sounds of guns
• someone beating at the armoured glass with an
  iron bar.

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Senses

• the noise and the heat, and the stench of oil
  burning on hot metal beat at us, overwhelming our
  senses, deadening them.
• we were separated from the fear and the noise
  and the stench of it.

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Foreshadowing

• the spirit was giving way to a terrible
  foreboding.
• There was also something else. Something I
  hadnt seen before a reckless ferocity of
  purpose.

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Emotive

• her hands clenched tight enough to hurt,
  intent on watching the rape of her country and
  the movement she and her friends had built up in
  the course of twenty-two days.
• tied cloth tied around their heads made them
  look aggressive, even piratical.
• There was also something else. Something I
  hadnt seen before a reckless ferocity of
  purpose

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Emotive

• What was it like inside? I imagined the soldiers
  half crazed with the noise and heat and the fear
  of being burned alive.

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Metaphor

• the river of protest running along Changan
  Avenue at that time.
• A terrible shout of triumph came from the crowd
  primitive and dark, its prey finally caught.

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Directness

• He was dead within seconds.
• It was hard to define the mood
• I tore one mans shirt and punched another in
  the back.

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Evoking and vivid

• a sudden angry roar and I know it was because
  the vehicle had crushed someone under its tracks
• They screamed with anger and hate as the vehicle
  swung randomly in different directions,
  threatening to knock people down as it made its
  way through the Square.

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Evoking and vivid

• The Molotov cocktails arched above our heads,
  spinning over and over, exploding on the thin
  shell of armour that protected the men inside.
• Still the vehicle carried on, zigzagging,
  crossing the Avenue, trying to a way through the
  barricade.

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Voice

• There are very few foreign journalists left in
  the Square now, and I felt especially
  conspicuous. But I also felt good.
• Now I was the one fighting, struggling to get
  through the crowd, pulling the people back,
  pushing them out of my path, swearing a big
  brutal Englishman stronger than any of them.
• It was his blood they wanted, I was certain, it
  was to feel the blood running over their hands.

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Poetic

• He looked at me blankly,and his thin arm went
  limp in my grasp.I stopped shouting,he relaxed
  his grip on the brick,and I threw it under the
  bus.
• I recalled the lines of the Tang Dynasty poet Li
  Po, that if you cut water with a sword you merely
  made it run faster. But the river of change had
  been dammed, and below me, in the Avenue where it
  had run, people were dying.

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John Simpson and Hong Kong

• He says he has always had a soft spot for Hong
  Kong. He covered the handover extensively and
  returns at least once a year during period of
  handover. As a source of news, however, the SAR
  has long since dropped from the international
  radar screen after the dire predictions of
  jackbooted PLA thugs throttling our freedoms
  conspicuously failed to come true.

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Thank you.