Integrity. Authority. Empathy. The three attributes in the journalism of the late Sir Charles Wheeler identified by this year’s winner of the much prized award which bears his name and which this magazine is proud to sponsor.
And what Steve Rosenberg, our acclaimed new laureate, also identified with those three words was precisely the reason he was chosen to be the latest lauded recipient of this award. For it is those very things, integrity, authority and empathy, that shine so brightly from his own reporting that made him such an overwhelmingly popular choice.
The Old Cinema at the University of Westminster, which joins us with the Journalists’ Charity as fellow patrons of the Charles Wheeler Award, was packed to bursting in October with friends and fellow journalists who flocked to the event to pay tribute to Steve Rosenberg. The BBC News Russian editor flew in from Moscow on a rare break from his hot seat to receive the award, presented as usual by Sir Charles Wheeler’s daughters, Marina and Shirin.
What was unusual and remarkable about the choice of this sixteenth winner was the warmth of the acclaim he has won from colleagues, from fellow professionals on the front line and – most importantly – from the people who matter, the viewers and listeners. The director general of the BBC, Tim Davie, was in the audience at the event – but the audience for whom Steve Rosenberg does his job is the one that counts and matters to him. He spoke movingly about the challenges of the job, about his love for the country and its people, about what it is like to report in circumstances of such sensitivity that every day brings its own different difficulties.
Steve Rosenberg has lived in Moscow for 30 years. He speaks the language and as an accomplished amateur pianist he plays the music, too. And it’s not only Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. He can play the theme tune from Postman Pat in the style of the Russian classicists. This was one classy winner.
The speaker at the event, the etymologist and lexicographer, Susie Dent – yes, the woman in the dictionary corner – set the tone for the evening by addressing the importance of the way we use language, an issue of necessary significance to every journalist from wheresoever he or she may be reporting in the world. She struck an upbeat note, emphasizing the possibilities of using words to enhance the positive, to help the world seem a better place.
Susie Dent is famed, of course, for reminding us of the forgotten obscurities of our native tongue and one lovely example she used was “apricity”. It means “the warmth of the sun in winter”. It is a word that resonates with the sound of Spring and April and for which one would hope there is also an equivalent in Russian. One way and another, the apricity of the evening made everyone feel more optimistic.
Julia Langdon : Editor, BJR