Adie, Kate (1945- )

English television reporter. She has covered the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) national news since 1979, reporting from trouble-spots around the world, and was chief news correspondent 1989-2003. Twice the winner of the Monte Carlo International TV News award (1981, 1990), she won the BAFTA Richard Dimbleby award in 1989, and was voted Reporter of the Year in 1992.

Her first major war zone story was the siege of the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980. She reported unscripted while crouching behind a car door while the SAS stormed the embassy. Her report paved the way for more female journalists to cover hotspots around the world. Other high profile assignments include the Lockerbie bombing (1988), protests at Tiananmen Square (1989), the Gulf War (1990-91), and genocide in Rwanda (1994). From 2003 she worked as a freelance reporter and presented the BBC Radio 4 programme From Our Own Correspondent.

Adie was born in Northumberland, but grew up in the city of Sunderland, County Durham, with her adopted parents. She took a degree in Scandinavian studies at Newcastle University, and joined BBC Radio in 1969 as a technician, later becoming a producer. In 1977 she moved to television, beginning a two-year spell with BBC South. She joined the BBC national news team in 1979, working as a court reporter. Her books include The Kindness of Strangers (2002), an autobiography; Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War (2003), a history of women in wartime; and Nobody's Child (2005), which focuses on adoption and identity.