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Tributes to Sir Charles Wheeler CMG
91Èȱ¬ Director-General Mark Thompson led the tributes to Sir Charles Wheeler CMG, one of the 91Èȱ¬'s most renowned correspondents, who died today aged 85.
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Mark Thompson said:
"To audiences and to his colleagues alike Charles Wheeler was simply a legend.
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"His integrity, his authority and his humanity graced the 91Èȱ¬'s airwaves over many decades.
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"He is utterly irreplaceable but like everyone else, I am privileged to have worked with him."
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91Èȱ¬ Chairman Sir Michael Lyons said: "I met Charles Wheeler for the first and only time at a public meeting where we were both answering questions from licence fee payers.
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"His connection to that audience was impressive and it struck me then that his success as a journalist was based in part on his total respect for those with whom he sought to share information.
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"My thoughts are with his family at this sad time." Ìý
Deputy Director-General and Head of 91Èȱ¬ Journalism Mark Byford said: "Charles was, in my view, the greatest broadcast journalist of his generation.
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"Courageous, insightful and always curious, he had the truly outstanding gift for vivid, beautiful writing matched by a quite extraordinary skill for using pictures and sound to convey the power of his own eye witness reportage.
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"As a journalist you saw him as the pinnacle of our profession.
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"His death is a huge loss but his legacy will last forever."
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91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 Controller Mark Damazer said: "Charles Wheeler embodied all that is best in the 91Èȱ¬'s journalism.
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"He had a brilliant eye and an unequalled ability to convey what he saw and what he knew.
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"His work for Radio 4 over the last decade demonstrated his astonishing range – dealing with central andÌýeastern EuropeÌý - but also, andÌýsuperbly, with the legacy at home ofÌýWorld War Two. The documentary series Coming 91Èȱ¬ in 2005 was the Radio 4 highlight that year.
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"He was working for Radio 4 almost until he died, on a programme about the Dalai Lama.
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"Everything he did was shot through with his compassion and wisdom. He was magnificent."
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91Èȱ¬ Press Office
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