Legendary broadcaster tragically dies

A hugely respected broadcaster and former deputy editor of The Australian has died after years of battling poor health.

Legendary broadcaster and journalist Colin Chapman has died aged 87. The veteran media figure has worked for BBC TV, as well as having stints at the Sunday Times, Financial Times and Observer.

Chapman - who also wrote several books - had reportedly been suffering with poor health for several years.

He is understood to have passed away over the weekend.

Chapman’s career spanned three continents and saw him as a print reporter as well a TV presenter.

He said previously: “There will not be many journalists who have been both writers and executives in the print media, and also on-camera performers and senior managers in radio and television.”

The well-known writer had been suffering from health issues for years. Picture: Facebook.

He was most recently an editor-at-large for the Australian Outlook, where his work included columns on elections around the world this year.

He also enjoyed stints at the New York Times, Washington Post and ABC.

For the latter he was a founding producer of the network’s The World Today.

During his renowned career, Chapman was not only an expert political analyst but also a revered foreign correspondent, including covering terror attacks in Hong Kong in the 1960s and international conflicts in Africa and the Suez region.

He spent three periods in Australia - the last in 2004 - and was granted citizenship.

Chapman sent a six-page history of his life to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, in which he described the beginnings of his career at the BBC.

He described how in 1974 he became economics correspondent for the broadcaster.

He wrote that the Beeb “encouraged me to interpret economics very broadly”.

“In my second year I was described as ‘the success story of BBC News’ by the editor.

“In my fourth year I was seconded to the BBC Current Affairs group to become presenter of the BBC’s high profile The Money Programme, a weekly, and on three days presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Financial World Tonight.

He was a former deputy editor of The Australian newspaper, and columnist for Australian Outlook. Picture: Facebook.

“The former gave me the opportunity for the first time to make long form documentaries.”

Chapman went on to say that “memorable” documentaries during this period included three weeks in Iran during the last days of the Shah, “when revolutionaries turned the oil tap off”.

He also spent two weeks in the Urals in Brezhnev’s Russia, where he filmed at Lada’s Togliati car plant “looking at Soviet industry through the conflicting eyes of a left wing shop steward and a yuppie manager from British Leyland, who we took with us”.

He added: “There were also films in India, Greece, South Africa and Japan.”

Chapman was born in the UK in 1937 and studied at the University of Leicester. His final years were spent with his wife Susan Grice in Tavira in Portugal.

This story originally appeared on The Sun and is republished here with permission.

Originally published as Legendary broadcaster tragically dies