Richard Dimbleby was the personification of British television current affairs broadcasting in the 1950s and early 1960s, and he set the standard for succeeding generations of presenters on the network, by whom he was recognized as the virtual founder of broadcast journalism. After working on the editorial staff of several newspapers, he joined the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as a radio news observer in 1936. When war broke out three years later, he became the BBC's first war correspondent, and, as such, within the constraints of often stifling official censorship, he brought the reality of warfare into homes throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain. Notably graphic broadcasts included dispatches from the battlefield of Al-Alamein and from the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day Landings and a report sent back from a Royal Air Force bomber on a raid over Germany  (in all, he flew as an observer on some 20 missions). He was also the first radio reporter to reach the concentration camp at Belsen, from which he sent a moving account of what he saw, and he was the first to enter Berlin.

After the war, Dimbleby worked as a freelance broadcaster and made the switch to television, in time becoming the BBC's best known commentator on current affairs and state events. Among the important state occasions he covered where the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 and the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Sir Winston Churchill. The coronation broadcast was a particular personal triumph, establishing Dimbleby as the first choice commentator on all state events and, incidentally, promoting television sales by some 50%. Other milestones in his career included his participation in 1951 in the first Eurovision television relay, and his appearance in the first live television broadcast from the Soviet Union.

In 1955, Dimbleby was selected as anchor for a much respected current affairs program Panorama, and it is with this show that his name is usually associated. !uizzing politicians of all colors with equal severity on behalf of the nation, he was praised by many as a defender of the public interest and became almost synonymous with the BBC itself as a bastion of fairness and perspicuity in political debate. Under Dimbleby’s direction, Panorama established itself as the current affairs program par excellence, the weekly showing almost a political event itself, raising issues that Parliament hastened to address in order to show that it was responsive to the electorate thus represented.

Viewers hung on to the presenter’s every word and besieged him with letters, begging him to use his evident influence to intervene personally in political issues of all kinds, from proposals for new roads to the Cuban missile crisis. One rare remark that did not go down so well was an infamous aside, “Jesus wept,” which was unfortunately picked up by the microphone and prompted a stream of letters criticizing him for blasphemy.

Dimbleby did, however, also tackle lighter fare and was much loved as chair of the radio program  Twenty Questions and as presenter of the homely Down Your Way series, in which he sought out prominent members of a given locality and passed the time of day with them. His standing with the British listening and viewing public was officially honored in 1945, when he was made an Officer of the British Empire, and again in 1959, when he was promoted to Companion of the British Empire. 

Dimbleby’s premature death from cancer at the age of 52, shortly after broadcasting to 350 million people on the state funeral of Winston Churchill, was regretted by millions of viewers, and subsequently the annual Richard Dimbleby lectures were established in his memory. These were not his only legacy, however, for his two sons, David and Jonathan, pursued similar careers and current affairs broadcasting and in their turn became two of the most familiar faces on British screens, earning reputations as fair but tough-minded interrogators of the political leaders of the generation. David Dimbleby emulated his father by, in 1974, becoming anchorman of Panorama,  while Richard Dimbleby has occupied a similar role on such current affairs programs as This Week and First Tuesday.