David Chater (born 1953) is a British broadcast journalist.
Chater has more than 35
years' experience in international television news, having worked for Independent
Television News, Sky News and Al Jazeera English. He joined ITN in 1976, Sky News
in 1993 and Al Jazeera English in 2006. In 2008 he also took time out to serve as
Head of News at Georgian television channel Kanal Pik, run under licence by K1.
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Career
3 References
4 External links
Early life and education
Chater was born on 5 March 1953 in the large village of Meopham in Kent in South
East England.[1] He was educated at Maidstone Grammar School in the county town of
Maidstone in Kent, from November 1965 to February 1972, and in later life, he
became President of the Old Maidstonian Society.[2]
Immediately after leaving school, he took a Short-Service Limited Commission [SSLC]
in the British Army and served briefly as an officer, attached to a regiment of
Gurkha Rifles in Hong Kong, Brunei and Sarawak. He read Experimental Psychology at
St John's College from 1972 to 1975, graduating with a BA from the University of
Oxford.[citation needed]
Career
Print-journalism
Chater began his career working for the local newspaper, the Kent Messenger
newspaper, but he stayed with the paper for only a very short time, before joining
the broadcaster ITN.
ITN
Chater joined ITN in 1976, as a graduate trainee. Later, he became a scriptwriter
and then a Chief Sub-Editor. As a reporter, he worked around the world, covering
stories such as the Enniskillen bombing, Lockerbie, the Piper Alpha disaster, the
Falklands crisis and Falklands War in 1982 and the Gulf War in 1991.
In 1991, Chater was seriously injured whilst reporting on the front-line in Vukovar
during the Yugoslavian conflict, when he was shot in the back by a sniper's bullet.
Surgeons saved his life but had to remove one of his kidneys. After making a full
recovery he returned to report on the Siege of Sarajevo and the continuing conflict
in Bosnia. During his time with ITN, Chater filed stories from Tel Aviv, which was
under Scud attack from Iraq during the first Gulf War, and went undercover to
report on the opening of the civil war in Sri Lanka.
Sky News
Chater joined Sky News in 1993, and opened its Moscow bureau, becoming its first
Moscow Correspondent. He moved to Jerusalem in 1996, becoming Sky News' Middle East
correspondent. He was nominated for a Royal Television Society award for his
coverage of the continuing conflict in that region. He reported from the conflict
in Kosovo and the 1999 war against Slobodan Milosevic.
In 2001, Chater covered the war in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, receiving a
Gold Medal from the New York Television Festival for his reports on the siege of
Kunduz, jointly with his Sky News colleague Colin Brazier.
In April 2003, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Chater reported from the streets
of Baghdad before and during the arrival of US forces to the city, stayed
throughout Operation Shock and Awe and also covered the Battle for Faluja.
Chater was awarded the Gold Medal for International Reporter of the Year at the New
York Television Festival for his coverage of the Second Chechen War during the
Siege of Grozny, in which he was caught in the middle of a Grad rocket attack while
reporting to camera. The coverage was also nominated for an Emmy Award. He returned
to the UK and was assigned to Sky News' Investigative Journalism Unit, and later
became Sky News' Africa Correspondent.
In 2006, Chater resigned from Sky News to join Al Jazeera English. The then Head of
Sky News, Nick Pollard, said Chater was leaving to pursue "other interests" and
praised his "outstanding career" with the channel.[3][4]
