Stephen Grimason dead aged 67: Pioneering BBC journalist ‘one step ahead of everyone else’ dies after battle with cancer
TRIBUTES have poured in for veteran BBC journalist Stephen Grimason who has died age 67 from cancer.
The former BBC Northern Ireland political editor was best known for breaking the news of the historic Good Friday Agreement.
Adam Smyth, director of BBC NI, said Stephen “possessed talents that only the very best editors and correspondents exhibit”.
He added: “The audience always came away from his broadcasts feeling they knew and understood the political landscape better, and they trusted what he had to say.”
BBC NI correspondent Mark Simpson said Stephen will be “deeply missed but always loved, by family, friends and colleagues”.
Michelle O’Neill, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, said the reporter made a “huge contribution to journalism here”.
She added: “…and was front and centre during some of the biggest moments in our history.”
Born in Lurgan, Co Armagh, in 1957, Stephen developed a knack for journalism at school and joined the Lurgan Mail in 1975.
He moved to the Ulster Star in Lisburn where he was sports editor and covered news.
Aged just 27, he became editor of the Banbridge Chronicle before joining BBC Northern Ireland in 1987.
Noel Thompson, a former presenter at the channel, said Stephen had the two most important skills of a journalist: a love of gossip and a love of sharing it.
HISTORIC MOMENT
Stephen’s career-defining moment came on April 10, 1998, when he scooped hundreds of journalists to get a copy of the Good Friday Agreement, which helped to end the Troubles.
He said he “struggled to breathe” as he held the document up on live TV.
Mr Thompson, who was anchoring in the studio at that moment, said: “It’s one of the key journalistic moments of the last 30 or 40 years.”
Stephen went on to work for the Stormont administration as director of communications, a job he held until 2016.
In 2022 he told BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback he’d lost two kidneys to kidney cancer and was nearing the end of his life.
He said: “I am terminally ill but what am I going to do, sit and cry about it?”