To a nervous journalist starting out at the BBC, Charles Wheeler was an inspiration. He cared. He never wanted to be the centre of attention. He just wanted to be where the news was Two words sum up why I am a journalist: Charles Wheeler. As a child growing up in Edinburgh, I wanted to be a doctor. Then I saw Charles Wheeler's BBC reports from the US on the race riots in American cities and I suddenly thought very differently about my career. In the Edinburgh of that time, I had never seen a black person, and yet night after night I sat transfixed in front of the TV watching Charles explain why I should care. And I did. Looking back at these reports now, what strikes me is their clarity and quiet authority, and also the underlying sense of outrage that human beings could treat each other so badly on account of their skin...
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