Vin Ray is a member of the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

's Journalism Board and the first Director of the

BBC College of Journalism The BBC Academy is an educational arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation which trains current and prospective broadcasting employees in the skills of the Broadcasting industry, in addition to training the corporation's own staff and prospect ...

History in the BBC

Ray joined the BBC in

CEEFAX Ceefax () was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST (11:32 PM BST) on 23 October ...

in 1987 and moved on to work as a producer on the Nine O'Clock News under the editorship of Mark Thompson. As a foreign field producer, Ray worked on many of the big stories of the early 1990s, including the first

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

, the

Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Commu ...

coup and the

Bosnian war The Bosnian War ( / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following several earlier violent incid ...

. In the UK, he was in charge of the field operation for the resignation of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

, as well as numerous IRA bombings. He became TV Foreign Editor in 1993 and two years later became the bi-medial Foreign Editor across domestic TV and radio. In 1996 he was asked to merge the Newsgathering operations of the World Service and the domestic News and Current Affairs, becoming World News Editor, the first person to take charge of the BBC's entire foreign newsgathering operations. Influenced by the deaths and injuries of colleagues—he was with

Martin Bell Martin Bell, (born 31 August 1938) is a British UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Ambassador, a former broadcast war Journalist, reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Ta ...

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...

when he was injured—Vin was instrumental in helping introduce safety equipment, courses and counselling services across the industry. In 1999, as Executive Editor, he was asked to look at improving the storytelling skills of the BBC's reporters and correspondents. He also had responsibility for recruiting and coaching on-air talent for BBC News and gave many of the BBC's best known correspondents their first jobs in foreign news. He was described as 'a revered teacher' by

Andrew Marr Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and presenter. Beginning his career as a political commentator at ''The Scotsman,'' he subsequently edited ''The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to ...

who, along with many others, he trained and coached through his transition to broadcasting.

Authorship

Vin Ray is the author of two books: *''The Reporter's Friend'' *''The Television News Handbook''Amazon.com entry for ''The Television News Handbook''
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References

bbc stub {{DEFAULTSORT:Ray, Vin BBC people British male journalists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people