http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11553741

It is with deep regret to learn of the death of the former BBC Northern Ireland Political Editor Jim Dougal, who was known internationally during the Northern Ireland Peace Process, later to become Head of the EU's Office in London, and subsequently returning to broadcasting journalism in the past few years. I knew Jim Dougal when I was the Daily Mail's Ireland staff London reporter during 1986-1990 and also when I was at BBC Northern Ireland doing newsdesk and Good Morning Ulster reporting shifts.  He was the lead presenter for the BBC evening news programme and was known to millions aroud the world. Jim was a great broadcaster. One of the best.
GB

Former RTÉ Editor Jim Dougal dies

RTÉ's former Northern Editor Jim Dougal has died at the age of 65.

Mr Dougal had been battling cancer for some time.

Born in Belfast, Mr Dougal had a distinguished career in journalism and worked as RTÉ's Northern Editor from the late 1970s until 1991.

He moved from RTÉ to become BBC Northern Ireland's political correspondent.

Mr Dougal was also the European Commission's spokesperson in Belfast and later became head of the Commission's UK office in London.

He resigned from that post in 2004 after he took issue with the Commission's communications policy.

Since then, he had been involved in broadcasting and media training in Northern Ireland.

Mr Dougal had a prominent role in UTV's coverage of recent Westminster and European elections.

He had just finished making a programme on the life and times of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

He is survived by his wife, Deirdre, their three daughters and a son.

Tributes

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has expressed his condolences to Mr Dougal's family.

Minister Martin said: 'Jim was a gifted journalist with great political insight, and one who conducted himself with complete professionalism throughout his long career.'

In a statement, RTÉ also paid tribute to journalist.

Managing Director of RTÉ News Ed Mulhall said: 'He was a hugely significant figure in Irish broadcasting and journalism. As the station's Northern Editor from 1979 until 1991, he led RTÉ's coverage through some of the most difficult and dangerous years of the Troubles.

'He was a distinguished journalist and was widely respected as a fair and authoritative commentator on events in Northern Ireland during that period. Our sincere condolences go to his wife Deirdre and their four children.'

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said: 'I have known Jim Dougal for many many years, from his time in RTÉ, through his years in the BBC and more recently as a commentator on UTV.

'Most recently of course, Jim chaired one the party leaders debates during the last Westminster election campaign.

'Jim was a political journalist whose integrity and professionalism could never be questioned and despite his illness in recent years he continued to work and to contribute.

'On behalf of Sinn Féin I would wish to extend my condolences to Jim's family and colleagues at this difficult time.'

Alliance Party Leader and Northern Ireland Justice Minister David Ford also paid tribute to the broadcaster.

Mr Ford said: 'Jim was a very accomplished journalist and had an excellent career working within the European Commission, BBC, UTV and RTÉ.

'The sheer breadth of his achievements illustrates his talent and expertise in both politics and the media.'

SDLP Leader Margaret Ritchie described Mr Dougal as 'an immense figure in Irish journalism'.

Ms Ritchie said: 'On screen he was a broadcasting giant - never shirking or shying away from asking the difficult questions.

'But off screen he was a true gentleman - never short of a kind word or a piece of advice and encouragement.'



Source:-
RTÉ News
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1015/dougalj.html

This is taken from The Guardian:

Jim Dougal
Respected Northern Irish political journalist with an affable charm  
by Bob Chaundy
guardian.co.uk,       Wednesday 3 November 2010

Jim Dougal, who has died of cancer aged 65, was one of the most authoritative political journalists in Northern Ireland, where he had the distinction of working for all three of the region's main broadcasters, Ulster Television, RTÉ and the BBC. He earned the respect and trust of influential figures from across the sectarian divide as a result of his affable nature and the even-handed approach he applied throughout a 40-year career.

Jim accumulated a Rolls-Royce of a contacts book that gave him a level of access that was second to none. His approach to interviews was never to hector, but to apply a mixture of charm and quiet insistence. A friend compared it to roasting a chicken. "Jim could wrap his interviewees gently in foil and have them in the oven before they even knew they were being cooked."

Though a devout Catholic, he wore his religion lightly. He maintained a long friendship, for example, with Ian Paisley, for whom he once negotiated a back-door exit from a Pittsburgh hotel so he could avoid a hostile republican demonstration out front.

Jim was born in Belfast and attended St Mary's grammar school there. His father worked for the Northern Ireland electricity board and his mother, a former nurse, was a housewife. While still at school, he began to train for the priesthood at Crossgar, County Down, a process that continued at St Gabriel's seminary in Enniskillen, where his oldest brother, Bobby, trained before his premature death. Jim decided not to continue his instruction and left to take a job with the Inland Revenue in London in 1963.

Homesickness brought him back to Belfast, where he began to write articles on rural life for the Sunday Press. From the mid-1960s, he became a freelance general reporter for the BBC and later for Ulster Television. He believed that his efforts to secure a permanent job at UTV were hindered because he was a Catholic.

Jim's big break came in 1974, when he became northern editor of the Irish broadcaster RTÉ. Through sheer professionalism, he put RTÉ, hitherto regarded with great suspicion by unionists, on the political map. Visiting the RTÉ studios became part of the established pattern for all politicians, and there they would find a man who always looked the part – dapper, with never a hair out of place. As one colleague remarked: "Jim would never enter a studio without the strong whiff of after-shave."

In 1990 Jim became the BBC's Northern Ireland political editor, his sources proving invaluable in deciphering the tortuous twists and turns of the faltering peace process. In 1994 he was the first to interview Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams and the SDLP's John Hume together after it had emerged that they had been engaging in secret talks.

Jim's efforts at magazine-programme presentation were less successful. His anchoring of the revamped Newsline lasted only two months, and in 1997, he left the BBC for the lucrative position of head of the European Commission's Belfast office. He saw a parallel between his belief that Europe was about preserving differences yet working for a common good, and the state of affairs in Northern Ireland.

His keen communication skills raised Brussels's profile and earned him promotion to the London office in 2002. No sooner had he arrived in the capital than he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. But it was stifling bureaucracy, not illness, that prompted his resignation in 2004; that and his conclusion that it was the responsibility of individual governments to sell the European idea, not the commission.

He returned to form a production company, Dougal Media, for which he made profiles of Paisley and Margaret Thatcher. His greatest passion, though, was his family. He is survived by his wife, Deirdre, daughters Tara, Emma and Tina, a stepdaughter, Nicola, and a son, James.

• James Joseph Dougal, journalist, born 19 March 1945; died 15 October 2010