Born: June 23rd, 1955
Died: November 20th, 2024
Ken Reid, who has died aged 69, was a journalist who in a sense covered Northern Ireland from war to peace while taking a brief detour from the Troubles to impress his warm Ulster personality on the people of Cork city.
He started his career in newspapers but eventually moved on to UTV, where as political editor he delivered informed and accessible reporting on all the labyrinthine developments during the most crucial years of the peace process in and around the 1998 Belfast Agreement and beyond.
From a Protestant background, he earned the trust of UTV viewers as an even-handed journalist as the various attempts to create a peaceful and political settlement unfolded. Equally, he was trusted by politicians of all shades, whether it be Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness or David Trimble and Ian Paisley. It was Paisley who facilitated his greatest television scoop.
Reid, who was born in Belfast, lived near Ballymena, the hub of the DUP leader’s North Antrim constituency. Paisley had a fondness for Reid, over the years providing him with lively interviews and also keeping him up to speed on political developments. When, in March 2008, Paisley decided he would stand down as first minister and DUP leader, he made sure Reid was first with the information on the UTV main six o’clock news, every other reporter scrambling thereafter to catch up with the story.
Reid had an agreeable nature and could make friends with anybody. He had easy relationships with taoisigh such as Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern, with US presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and with British prime ministers such as John Major, Tony Blair, David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
And, as he wrote in the book Reporting the Troubles, he was one of only three journalists who had a genuinely cordial interaction with the late and former Ulster Unionist leader and first minister David Trimble, who generally was wary of reporters. The others were Victor Gordon of the Portadown Times and Frank Millar, former London editor of The Irish Times.
Reid was born in 1955 and raised in north Belfast. He attended Methodist College in Belfast and went on to Hull University in England. He began his journalistic career as the Troubles ground on relentlessly, joining the News Letter in Belfast in 1977 and moving to the post of sports editor of the now defunct Sunday News in the mid-1980s. He was later appointed editor of the paper.
In 1987 he caused surprise among his Belfast colleagues when he moved south to join the Cork Examiner. As one journalist at the paper remembered, within months he had “charmed the city senseless” while also making solid contacts with senior Irish politicians, which served him well when he joined UTV in 1994.
Not many months after his arrival in Cork, as the same reporter recalled, he had so embedded himself in the newspaper that if anyone wanted to know what was the important in-house gossip “they went to Ken”.
He was a devoted supporter of Everton, regularly attending games at Goodison Park in Liverpool. He was just as avid in his enthusiasm for Cliftonville FC in north Belfast, his grandfather presenting him with his first season ticket when he was just six. He also was a keen follower of Ballymena rugby club.
He was named news broadcaster of the year at the CIPR Press and Broadcast Awards in both 2005 and 2006. Earlier this year with his good friend and occasional rival Stephen Grimason, the former BBC political editor and later Stormont director of communications, he was awarded the Queen’s University Belfast chancellor’s medal. Both men were lauded for providing “a vital public service during the dark days of fear and uncertainty”.
He was generous and supportive to his colleagues. He also campaigned on behalf of Leukaemia & Lymphoma NI, becoming its patron in 2023. Reid was fashioned from old-style journalistic stock, which explains the curious £50 bet he had with Grimason over which of them would die first.
Both had been struggling with illnesses, particularly since their retirements – Grimason with cancer, Reid with leukaemia and diabetes. Grimason died in March this year, his wife Yvonne handing over the £50 to Reid after the funeral, insisting: “Ken, Stephen said you must take that.” Reid promptly proffered the money to the barman at Bob Stewart’s pub in Drumbeg near Belfast to defray just some of the costs of the libations indulged in by their friends after the service.
The wager certainly was on the black side, not untypical of journalists, but also was evidence of how Reid and Grimason faced up to both life and death, bravely and with grace and humour. Ken Reid is survived by his wife, Liz, children Gareth, Sarah and Sophie, and grandchildren Summer and Hugo.