UTV's Paul Clark: 50 years a journalist

Watch Paul Clark and UTV Journalist Tori Watson discuss his career.

I trained to be a journalist under false-pretences. In truth, I never wanted to be a reporter! So, why consider journalism?

Well, it’s a long story…

In my teenage years, I had my sights set on being a radio disc jockey.

During the evenings, when I ought to have been doing homework, I was travelling around the greater Belfast area, working as a disco DJ – and being paid.

However, these late nights came at a price.

Unable, or unwilling, to spend time revising for my ‘A’ Levels tells its own story. The C, D and E grades were hopelessly inadequate for studying French at Queen’s University.

Though I enjoy the language to this day, I still don’t know why I would have considered studying the subject. Nor do I recall being offered a place in “clearing”.

So, what to do next? I had no grand plan, but still wanted to pursue a career as a radio disc jockey – and the clock was ticking.

In truth, I thought that my broadcasting career would be over, by the time I was 30.

Who would want to employ a pop DJ over that age, anyway?

So, I used journalism as a means to an end. At the age of 18, I bluffed my way onto a one-year training course, at the Belfast College of Business Studies.

My colleagues would suggest – in jest (I hope) – that I have been bluffing my way, ever since.

Being a student for that year had not excited me… shorthand; typing; reading; writing; and essential law for journalists did not exactly set me on fire. So, in June 1973, I completed the course, and was fortunate to be offered a job as a junior reporter with The Irish News. And, very quickly, I realised how important those classes had been.

It was not time wasted. It had provided a solid foundation, on which I was able to build my skills as a working journalist! So, fifty years ago, I hit the ground running, covering stories at Belfast Magistrates’ Court.

Suddenly, it all made sense and I enjoyed the idea of being a scribe, even though I still nursed the ambition of a career in broadcasting.

I also discovered that there was nothing “routine” about the job.

Northern Ireland was a very different place then. 263 people died as a result of The Troubles in 1973. Death was an almost a daily occurrence.

Only a week into the job, I found myself shadowing a senior reporter covering the double murder of Paddy Wilson, and Irene Andrews.

Both had been stabbed to death, multiple times, on the outskirts of Belfast.

Paddy Wilson, was a prominent member of the SDLP; and had been an extremely popular man on both sides of the sectarian divide at Stormont, where he sat as a Senator.

He was also a member of Belfast City Council, and was agent for party leader, Gerry Fitt, in the elections to the Assembly, which took place later in June. Wilson had been stabbed 30 times in the head and chest, and his throat had been cut from ear to ear. I accompanied the reporter to O’Kane’s funeral parlour, across Donegall Street, from The Irish News. It was obvious that Paddy Wilson had, literally, bled to death.

The sight of his body, lying in the coffin, lives with me to this day.

Such was the revulsion, that Gerry Fitt almost withdrew from the Assembly election scheduled for June 28. In the event, he changed his mind, and topped the poll in North Belfast.

That election would be the first of many I have witnessed in half a century of journalism!

So, the teenager who began work - with no grand plan - now finds himself reflecting on a career which has been punctuated by the hurt, and pain, which we have inflicted upon each other - Enniskillen, Shankill Road, Kingsmills, Greysteel, Loughinisland, and Omagh.

These names, and too many others, recall our inhumanity – and our humanity.

After fifty years, it is always tempting to keep an eye on the past.

However, we must always look to the future. Today, I am more passionate, than ever, about my vocation. It is the only way I can describe it. I love it now, as much as I did, in June 1973.

We may live in different times, but the bottom line remains – as journalists we must always strive to get the story right.

Words can kill… and too often in our society, words have killed.

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