Martin Nesirky
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Friday 06 November 2009
I remember Ian Macdowall alone in the West Berlin bureau on Fasananstrasse early one morning, perhaps 7 am. He was swearing blue as he pounded the keys of the terminal. "Sit down and type what I dictate," he yelled as soon as he saw me. He was scowling and mumbling about a photographer at Brandenburg Gate.
The chief news editor had just filed a snap about the Wall opening at this historic site. And it was wrong. He was wrong. The photographer had mistaken a TV crane on the West Berlin side of the Wall for a construction crane, phoned in the newest gap in the Wall and left Macdowall with egg on his craggy face.
That same week he argued with Mark Wood to put a Berlin dateline on the story I filed from the opening of the Wall at Potsdammerplatz on Sunday morning, the 12th. Martin Nesirky had been assiduously filing stories from either East Berlin or West Berlin, but Macdowall prevailed on Wood to let that story run on a Berlin dateline for the first time in decades.
An amazing time with wonderful colleagues.
Paul Mindus
The chief news editor had just filed a snap about the Wall opening at this historic site. And it was wrong. He was wrong. The photographer had mistaken a TV crane on the West Berlin side of the Wall for a construction crane, phoned in the newest gap in the Wall and left Macdowall with egg on his craggy face.
That same week he argued with Mark Wood to put a Berlin dateline on the story I filed from the opening of the Wall at Potsdammerplatz on Sunday morning, the 12th. Martin Nesirky had been assiduously filing stories from either East Berlin or West Berlin, but Macdowall prevailed on Wood to let that story run on a Berlin dateline for the first time in decades.
An amazing time with wonderful colleagues.
Paul Mindus
David Nicholson
Wednesday 05 August 2009
Dave brought fun and kindness to the Desk each day and shared it generously. I recall with great fondness our handover chats when I was a day editor to his night editor. He invariably seemed to have an instant grasp of a file I’d struggled to contain all day. And, as others have so eloquently said, he provided far more than journalistic guidance and superlative subbing to correspondents in the field. He could lift your spirits and calm you down. I certainly won’t forget that. Thanks Dave.
Martin Nesirky
Martin Nesirky
