The Hennessy Lecture: Kate Adie CBE

When: Monday, February 16, 2026, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: Peston Lecture Theatre, Graduate Centre, Mile End

Join the Mile End Institute for the fifth in our new series of distinguished Hennessy Lectures by the celebrated journalist, author and war reporter, Kate Adie CBE!

Kate Adie CBE: 'A Life in Reporting'

The Fifth Distinguished Hennessy Lecture

Kate Adie was Chief News Correspondent for BBC News from 1989 to 2003, becoming one of the most famous and respected figures in British journalism. She reported live from the Iranian Embassy Siege in 1980, the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986 and the Lockerbie bombing of 1988. She was at Tiananmen Square in 1989, was shot by a Libyan army commander and reported on the Gulf War and the war in the former Yugoslavia.

She has been a freelance journalist since 2003 and presents "From Our Own Correspondent" on BBC Radio 4 and was awarded the CBE in 2018 for services to journalism. She has written five books including "The Kindness of Strangers”, an account of her work as a reporter, "Nobody's Child: The Lives of Abandoned Children" which formed the basis of the BBC series, Found, and "Fighting on the Home Front: The Legacy of Women in World War One".

In our fifth distinguished Hennessy Lecture, Kate Adie will be reflecting on her long career as a reporter, exploring the challenges facing a reporter in a changing world today and suggesting some hopeful paths for the future.

All are warmly welcome to attend. Tickets are free, but must be reserved in advance.

The lecture will be held in the Peston Lecture Theatre in the Graduate Centre, which is number 18 on this map of Queen Mary's Mile End campus. You can find it on What3Words at: https://w3w.co/fixed.reader.apples.