Keith Wilkinson (reporter)

Keith Wilkinson was a British television reporter[1] and news correspondent for 35 years.[2][3] In September 2019 ITV News announced he was leaving them to become a freelance writer and author.[4]

Keith Wilkinson
Born
Keith Wilkinson

Lancaster, Lancashire, England
OccupationNews Correspondent
Notable credit(s)
ITV News, Central Tonight, Carlton TV, Central Television

Born in Lancashire, England,[5] he began his career in newspaper journalism as a trainee reporter at The Westmorland Gazette in Kendal, Cumbria, in 1974. He joined Central Television in the former Associated TeleVision Broad Street studios in Birmingham in 1984[6] as a production journalist, sub-editor, programme producer and bulletin newsreader. Keith Wilkinson became a senior correspondent, appearing on ITV News Central, formerly Central News and Central Tonight.[7]

Broadcasting Awards

Keith Wilkinson won numerous awards for broadcasting, including the national BT Television News Broadcaster of the Year, the ITV Piece to Camera Gold Award 2004, the Birmingham Press Club's Scoop of the Year,[8] and Television Journalist of the Year 2008 in the Midlands Media Awards.[9] He received the ITV Judges' Award in 2008 for what was described as an outstanding contribution to ITV for his role as a mentor in the training of regional journalists.[10][11][12] He was nominated for a Royal Television Society (Midlands) award in 2010 for a series about the Battle of Arnhem.[13][14] In May 2014 at the British Film Institute, Wilkinson received the ITV News Gold Award for the best news feature of 2013 – for his reporting of the Stafford Hospital scandal.[15][16] In recognition of his contribution to journalism, he was made an Honorary Life Member of Birmingham Press Club and was presented with the club's Bugle Award in 2019.[17]

Career at ITV

In 1993 when he was Central's investigative Crime Reporter, he produced an ITV documentary called Stephanie's Story about the kidnapping of estate agent Stephanie Slater by the murderer Michael Sams. Wilkinson was featured in the book, Beyond Fear, My Will To Survive, in which Stephanie describes being taken back to the workshop in Nottinghamshire where she was held hostage.[18]

Wilkinson was the first television reporter to interview members of the Bridgewater Four on camera whilst they were still serving life sentences in prison. The campaigning Daily Mirror and Private Eye journalist Paul Foot wrote in the book Murder at the Farm that Wilkinson's "persistence in this case contrasted sharply with the abject acceptance of the authorised view by almost all his journalist colleagues in the Midlands".[19]

In 2003 Wilkinson was calling for greater media access to the British judicial system. In an article in The Guardian he described the principle of open justice as a joke.[1]

Wilkinson also became known for more light-hearted items. In 2006 he was photographed in the Daily Star[20] having a bucket of water poured over his head by Chris Tarrant, star of ITV's Who Wants to be a Millionaire?[21][22] This was a tribute to Tarrant's days on the Tiswas programme when he frequently covered people in water.

Keith Wilkinson was featured as The Human Guinea Pig in a six-month experiment starting in March 2008 on Central Tonight and itvlocal.com. It was launched in conjunction with researchers at the University of Birmingham in England as part of a project about physical fitness in the over-50s. By July, Ironman triathlete Asker Jeukendrup, Professor of Exercise Metabolism and head of the university's Human Performance Laboratory, told ITV that Wilkinson's rate of progress had been "unusual and spectacular". At the end of the project in September, Jeukendrup gave Wilkinson a VO2 max fitness assessment as a high 52.3.[10][23][24][25]

As part of an ITV News Central special programme in April 2014, Wilkinson filmed Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six inside the former prison wing at Lancaster Castle[26] where Hill had been held during his trial for the Birmingham pub bombings almost 40 years earlier. It was the first time Hill had returned to the prison and his old cell since his conviction for 21 murders was quashed at the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 1991, and in an exclusive interview Hill said his time at HMP Lancaster had been the start of a 16-year nightmare to clear his name.[27] Wilkinson had first interviewed Paddy Hill for Central News inside Gartree Prison in Leicestershire in the 1980s before his appeal hearing at the Old Bailey.[28]

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References
  1. Lutz, Richard (8 December 2003). "Courts try to ban defendant's images". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 June 2011.
  2. "TV Newsroom Biography". Retrieved 7 July 2011.
  3. itv.com/Central news report about Redditch anniversary, retrieved 18 April 2014
  4. "itv.com news report announcing Wilkinson was leaving ITV News". Retrieved 9 September 2019.
  5. Q&A with Wilkinson, retrieved 7 July 2011
  6. itv.com report on Wilkinson reaching 30 years at Central News, retrieved 6 July 2014
  7. TV Room Presenters' Biographies, archived from the original on 15 July 2012, retrieved 17 July 2011
  8. www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk about Scoop of the Year, retrieved 9 July 2011
  9. Birmingham Press Club article, archived from the original on 26 March 2012, retrieved 9 July 2011
  10. TV Newsroom Biography, retrieved 9 July 2011
  11. Mentoring example from trainee blog, 2009, retrieved 17 July 2011
  12. ITV camera training independent website, archived from the original on 19 September 2011, retrieved 17 July 2011
  13. Birmingham Press Club article (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 25 July 2011, retrieved 7 July 2011
  14. RTS award nomination 2010, archived from the original on 12 March 2012, retrieved 7 July 2011
  15. itv.com news report about Awards at the British Film Institute, retrieved 11 May 2014
  16. itv.com news report about Stafford Hospital scandal, retrieved 11 May 2014
  17. Birmingham Living article about Press Club life membership award, retrieved 1 February 2020
  18. Beyond Fear. My Will To Survive. pp. 196–201. ISBN 1-85702-286-6. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
  19. Murder at the Farm ISBN 0-7472-6193-8, 1998 edition, pages 309, 325.
  20. Daily Star article and photograph, 2006
  21. Tiswas video clip of soaking, archived from the original on 16 July 2011, retrieved 7 July 2011
  22. Daily Star, 15 July 2006, page 23.
  23. www.askerjeukendrup.com, retrieved 7 July 2011
  24. www.narrowstep.tv, retrieved 10 July 2011
  25. itv.com reports about Wilkinson's career at Central, retrieved 2 July 2014
  26. Morecambe Visitor news item, retrieved 12 April 2014
  27. ITV.Com/Central news report, retrieved 11 April 2014
  28. ITV.com/Central news blog, retrieved 11 April 2014
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