Yahoo News C4's Jon Snow "haunted" over bond with Grenfell victim
Channel 4's Jon Snow has used his appearance at the Edinburgh International Television Festival to deliver a stirring eulogy for a young victim of the Grenfell Tower fire.
The veteran newsman delivered the annual James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the festival on Wednesday (August 23), and in it questioned how a tragedy like Grenfell could have ever happened.
Despite numerous blogs written by a resident's group called Grenfell Action Group warning of safety inefficiencies at the London tower block, more than 80 were subsequently killed when it caught fire in June.
The tragic story of 12-year-old Firdows, a young girl I met two months before she was killed in the Grenfell Tower disaster pic.twitter.com/p7sQxVGThB
- Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) August 23, 2017
Jon Snow has filed numerous reports from the scene of the deadly blaze, and in doing so, he learned that a young woman he'd recently met under very special circumstances was among those killed.
"I am still haunted too by my own link with what happened at Grenfell Tower," he acknowledged on Monday night. "On the 20th April this year, I was involved with Bill Gates in judging a school's debate, a competition in London.
"It was the final of a countrywide championship organised by the charity Debate Mate. That's an organisation that does fantastic work democratising that skill so often associated with the elite – public speaking.
"I was there to judge the best floor speech. I had little difficulty in deciding. The winner, Firdows Kedir, a remarkably poised hijab-wearing 12-year-old from West London. She was confident. She used language beautifully. Bill Gates grasped her hand and gave her the award.
"On the 19th of June, a mere two months later, reporting from Grenfell, I spotted a picture of Firdows on a 'missing' poster. She and her entire family of five are believed to have been incinerated together on the 22nd floor of Grenfell Tower.
"Two weeks ago it was confirmed that remnants of Firdows and her father had indeed been found, in their flat, and that their identities had been confirmed using DNA. Firdows had been described as 'the most intelligent, wise and eloquent girl'.
"I was fortunate to witness that first hand and since then I often think 'what might have she become?' What were her life chances, once she'd been picked out in this way? Could she have prevailed over the fractures in our society and succeeded?"
The tragedy also brought to mind his years as a youth worker for New Horizons, in which he became embroiled in a tragic circumstance of a young mother living in public housing. Watch him tell that story below:
Below the smoking remains of Grenfell Tower, I recalled the story of young mother Jan and the rescue of her six-week-old baby pic.twitter.com/F9SQDEJfho
- Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) August 23, 2017
In this time of international tensions, Brexit anxiety and uncertainty of Trump in the US, Jon asked the media not to take its eyes off its responsibility to protect the public interest - be it in the House of Commons or in the public housing communities all across the country.
"Grenfell speaks to us all about our own lack of diversity, and capacity to reach into the swathes of Western society with whom we have no connection," he told those gathered.
"Like my fellow journalists, I have spent many hours around Grenfell. I have come to know a number of the survivors, and I speak to them regularly by phone or email.
"So casually written off as nameless migrants, scroungers, illegals, and the rest. Actually, and it should be no shock to us, the tower was full of talent.
"Not least the wonderful and talented Khadija Saye, who died with her mother, on the verge of a major breakthrough as an artist. Or community leaders like Eddie Dafarn, who survived the inferno, but who wrote that warning blog on October 20th 2016.
"We the media report the lack of diversity in other walks of life, but our own record is nothing like good enough."
For his part, Jon promised to continue "going on doing" his duty as a guardian of the press at what appears to be "the worst and best of times to be on deck".
"It still has all the potential to prove to be the Golden Age. Let's seize it," he urged the media professionals in front of him.
The James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, named after the famed TV producer and writer, has been given annually at the Edinburgh festival since 1976 by the likes of Ted Turner, original Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert, Hollywood star Kevin Spacey and Veep creator Armando Iannucci, to name only a few.
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