013: Keme Nzerem/Finding the Story

“This stuff matters. If we don’t tell these stories, how can we hold people to account?”
This week my guest is journalist and broadcaster Keme Nzerem: skier, climber, outdoorsman, head judge of the Kendal Mountain Festival and best known as a Correspondent for Channel 4 News. Over the years Keme has held various roles at Channel 4 News – he’s been head of the Washington office; a sports correspondent covering Olympics, Paralympics and World Cups; and today he spends every day working intimately across some of the biggest stories in Europe.

We’ve known each other for a while, and we met up in Soho on a scorching hot evening in July 2017, where we spent a very enjoyable couple of hours discussing his life and career.

If you enjoyed Ed Leigh on how he made a career in the media, or Orlando von Eisendel on how he carved out his film-making career, you’ll also love this one. Highlights of our conversation include:
- Keme breaking down his career path
- Reporting on Hurricane Katrina – and Keme explaining how a story like that works.
- The gruelling process of recovering from knee reconstruction surgery
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His stint as Head Judge at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival
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His work on Grenfell Tower
Some fascinating, moving stuff in here, from a hugely articulate presence with a big heart and a head full of ideas and wisdom. Love your work Keme, thanks for coming on the show.
If you only have five minutes…
Listen to this section - Keme explains how a story like Hurricane Katrina comes together
Show Notes
- Beautiful Soho evening
- Keme’s overview on the Grenfell Tower disaster in West London
- The current febrile news atmosphere in the UK, and its importance.
- ‘These are the kind of stories that made me want to be a journalist because there are genuine victims’
- Why a story such as Grenfell is the UK’s Hurricane Katrina.
- How Keme approaches a story with as many emotive layers as Grenfell.
- The dual importance of holding the wider issues to account and documenting the individual stories.
- How Grenfell has revealed the deep mistrust between residents and the authorities
- One of the key issues – is it ignorance or contempt?
- What Grenfell reveals about the cost of rent in the capital – and some unforeseen circumstances
- How Keme personally copes with the specific issues raised by covering these stories
- The responsibility he feels towards the people he covers
- Coping with the hypocrisy or a lot of public discourse
- How broadcast pool journalism works
- The crucial importance of impartiality in Keme’s job
- His path into his current job for Channel 4 News – via Comic Relief and ITN
- Heading to Washington to run the Channel 4 office
- The switch from production to presenting
- The career-defining experience of working on Hurricane Katrina
- The exhilarating, high pressure logistics involved in such a story
- ‘These stories matter. Its how we hold the people responsible to account’.
- How a sense of social justice has been a catalyst throughout Keme’s career.
- Reporting on the England-Russia hooliganism at the Euros
- Making the switch to sports correspondent
- The difficulty of covering those big ticket sports stories
- Doorstepping Sepp Blatter
- Keme’s advice for people wanting to follow in his footsteps
- The difficulty of getting action sports onto mainstream TV in a credible way
- Finding the angle and resonance in action sports
- How Keme discovered skiing – a dryslope course at Woolwich Barracks
- First time in the mountains
- Keme’s mountain life now
- First seasons in the mountain
- Time in Chamonix and Saalbach
- The appeal of winter sports – “I just like going fast”
- Keme’s experience of knee reconstruction surgery – and his amazing ‘holiday’ rule
- How cycling has taken over from skiing and football
- The physical penalties of age
- The Dunwich Dynamo
- The democracy and participatory nature of action sports and the outdoor world.
- How Keme’s involvement with the Kendal Mountain Film Festival came about
- ‘The Freedom Chair’
- Keme’s favourite films from Kendal
- ‘Joanna Under The Ice’
- ‘La Liste’
- ‘Tom Siepp’
- What the future holds for Keme
Places/events/programmes/media mentioned
- Grenfell Tower
- Finsbury Park
- Manchester
- Kensington
- St Clement’s Church
- Channel 4 News
- Comic Relief
- ITN
- Washington
- ‘House of Cards’
- Rocky Mountains
- Colorado
- Taos
- New Mexico
- Baton Rouge
- Marseilles
- South Africa
- Zambia
- Cape Flats
- Lusaka
- British Ski and Snowboarding Championships
- Dublin
- Mullaghmore Head
- Northern Ireland
- Greenwich
- Woolwich
- Courmayeur
- Lake Tahoe
- Saalbach
- Chamonix
- Brevent
- Les Houches
- Le Tour
- La Plagne
- Vallorcine
- Dunwich
- South Downs Way
- Courmayeur
- Geneva
- Snowdonia
- Kendal Mountain Film Festival
- Arc’teryx
People mentioned
- Jeremy Corybn
- Pele
- Desmond Tutu
- David Conn
- David Walsh
- Sepp Blatter
- Sascha Hamm
- Alex Honnold
- Andrew Cotton
- Lee Rigby
- Pete Turvey
- Chris Moran
- Jonny Barr
- Matt Lowbridge
- Steve Bailey
- Mike Loosemore
- Tommy Caldwell
- Josh Dueck
- The Brownlee Brothers
- Jordan Manley
- Jeremie Heitz