Post by QPR Report on Nov 29, 2008 11:52:51 GMT
Presumably some QPR supporters knew him. 
The Guardian/Bob Woffinden
Steve Rose - Cheerful, witty BBC radio and TV producer
Steve Rose, who has died aged 59 of pancreatic Cancer, worked at the BBC for 26 years as a current affairs producer in both radio and television and, ultimately, as executive editor of BBC News.
For someone who was to stay there so long, he was, colleagues recalled, refreshingly un-BBC when he arrived, at a time when the corporation was on the cusp of change between the buttoned-up old ways and the coming glasnost. The characteristics that spring to mind when thinking of him are, as one BBC friend said, "laughter, cheerfulness, great wit and a sharp mind".
He was born in Wembley, north London, to parents who were commercial travellers selling women's clothing. After school at Latymer Upper in Hammersmith, in his gap year before university, Steve joined them, selling dresses to boutiques. After reading psychology at Sheffield University, he went on to a graduate journalism training scheme and worked on the Reading Evening Post, before joining the BBC in 1973. He did a stint on Newsbeat (Radio 1), before becoming a producer on the Today programme (Radio 4).
In 1979, he produced Today's first live broadcasts from Beijing, with Libby Purves as presenter. The production team's anxieties, which included not knowing whether the new satellite link would work, now seem unimaginable, but at the time it was a significant editorial breakthrough for the BBC. If there was a problem, it was only that the technical perfection of the broadcasts made it difficult to believe they were in China at all.
After a year as the Today programme's New York producer, he switched to television. He arrived at Nationwide, the BBC's ailing weekday programme, just in time, as he said, to help finish it off. His worst moment was being goosed in the lift by Larry Grayson.
In 1985, Steve helped to establish Watchdog with the presenter Lynne Faulds Wood and was editor for three years. The programme won several awards for consumer journalism. "All those happy hours," he reflected, "hiding behind Lynne as we chased minor villains down the street."
He was then in charge of the main evening news bulletin, the Nine O'Clock News (as it then was), during which time the programme won Royal Television Society (RTS) and Bafta awards.
By 1999 he was executive editor of BBC News when, dismayed by one internal reorganisation after another, he took early retirement and started a media consultancy company.
I had first met Steve when I bumped into him in 1967 during freshers' week at Sheffield. He was from London and was probably the first Jewish person I met (I had had a sheltered schooling in Lichfield). He seemed so effortlessly cool, I thought I could never hope to become a friend - which was to reckon without his immense generosity of spirit.
Several years later in 1980, one rainy autumn afternoon in north London, he and Mary (his girlfriend from Sheffield) and my wife and I got married together. Seemingly thrilled by the prospect of a double wedding, the register office staff had put out countless rows of chairs. They were clearly downcast when just the four of us turned up.
In June this year he was told that he had pancreatic Cancer and, when the diagnosis confirmed in July that it was well advanced, he opted against any treatment, to squeeze the maximum quality out of whatever life he had left. A stalwart Queen's Park Rangers supporter, he drove to Stevenage to watch QPR play a pre-season friendly.
His overriding concern was for everyone else, and in particular his family. To help stem the tide of distressed phone calls and emails, he started a blog, Steve's Last Words, with a brief that echoed the BBC's: to inform, educate and entertain.
Readers needed a strong stomach for black humour. It was achingly honest. "I'm dying of Cancer," he wrote, "but I'm still the same bloke. I choose to deal with this head on. It wouldn't suit everybody." The blog led to a radio interview with Jeremy Vine, but he abandoned it earlier this month when he felt his lifelong capacity to entertain was, finally, beyond him.
He is survived by Mary and their two children, Daniel and Katy.
• Stephen Andrew Rose, radio and television journalist, born April 20 1949; died November 21 2008
www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/28/obituary-steve-rose-bbc-producer
The Guardian/Bob Woffinden
Steve Rose - Cheerful, witty BBC radio and TV producer
Steve Rose, who has died aged 59 of pancreatic Cancer, worked at the BBC for 26 years as a current affairs producer in both radio and television and, ultimately, as executive editor of BBC News.
For someone who was to stay there so long, he was, colleagues recalled, refreshingly un-BBC when he arrived, at a time when the corporation was on the cusp of change between the buttoned-up old ways and the coming glasnost. The characteristics that spring to mind when thinking of him are, as one BBC friend said, "laughter, cheerfulness, great wit and a sharp mind".
He was born in Wembley, north London, to parents who were commercial travellers selling women's clothing. After school at Latymer Upper in Hammersmith, in his gap year before university, Steve joined them, selling dresses to boutiques. After reading psychology at Sheffield University, he went on to a graduate journalism training scheme and worked on the Reading Evening Post, before joining the BBC in 1973. He did a stint on Newsbeat (Radio 1), before becoming a producer on the Today programme (Radio 4).
In 1979, he produced Today's first live broadcasts from Beijing, with Libby Purves as presenter. The production team's anxieties, which included not knowing whether the new satellite link would work, now seem unimaginable, but at the time it was a significant editorial breakthrough for the BBC. If there was a problem, it was only that the technical perfection of the broadcasts made it difficult to believe they were in China at all.
After a year as the Today programme's New York producer, he switched to television. He arrived at Nationwide, the BBC's ailing weekday programme, just in time, as he said, to help finish it off. His worst moment was being goosed in the lift by Larry Grayson.
In 1985, Steve helped to establish Watchdog with the presenter Lynne Faulds Wood and was editor for three years. The programme won several awards for consumer journalism. "All those happy hours," he reflected, "hiding behind Lynne as we chased minor villains down the street."
He was then in charge of the main evening news bulletin, the Nine O'Clock News (as it then was), during which time the programme won Royal Television Society (RTS) and Bafta awards.
By 1999 he was executive editor of BBC News when, dismayed by one internal reorganisation after another, he took early retirement and started a media consultancy company.
I had first met Steve when I bumped into him in 1967 during freshers' week at Sheffield. He was from London and was probably the first Jewish person I met (I had had a sheltered schooling in Lichfield). He seemed so effortlessly cool, I thought I could never hope to become a friend - which was to reckon without his immense generosity of spirit.
Several years later in 1980, one rainy autumn afternoon in north London, he and Mary (his girlfriend from Sheffield) and my wife and I got married together. Seemingly thrilled by the prospect of a double wedding, the register office staff had put out countless rows of chairs. They were clearly downcast when just the four of us turned up.
In June this year he was told that he had pancreatic Cancer and, when the diagnosis confirmed in July that it was well advanced, he opted against any treatment, to squeeze the maximum quality out of whatever life he had left. A stalwart Queen's Park Rangers supporter, he drove to Stevenage to watch QPR play a pre-season friendly.
His overriding concern was for everyone else, and in particular his family. To help stem the tide of distressed phone calls and emails, he started a blog, Steve's Last Words, with a brief that echoed the BBC's: to inform, educate and entertain.
Readers needed a strong stomach for black humour. It was achingly honest. "I'm dying of Cancer," he wrote, "but I'm still the same bloke. I choose to deal with this head on. It wouldn't suit everybody." The blog led to a radio interview with Jeremy Vine, but he abandoned it earlier this month when he felt his lifelong capacity to entertain was, finally, beyond him.
He is survived by Mary and their two children, Daniel and Katy.
• Stephen Andrew Rose, radio and television journalist, born April 20 1949; died November 21 2008
www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/28/obituary-steve-rose-bbc-producer
