Roland Gribben, who died on Friday aged 86, was one of the most accomplished business journalists of his technology, a relentlessly challenging-functioning and decent person who was nearly universally respected, and sometimes feared, between the industrialists he wrote about for his consummate professionalism and commitment to good, incisive and correct reporting.
Baron Simon of Highbury, a previous chief govt and chairman of BP as perfectly as a federal government minister, claimed: “He had a special capability to electrify the dullest of corporation push conferences with a 5-barrelled opening dilemma that beautifully expected every thing everyone else could possibly want to request. He was just one of the most astute reporters of his small business era, who generally seemed to know as a great deal about the corporations he lined as the individuals who ran them.”
Similarly effusive in his praise is Sir Max Hastings, editor of The Daily Telegraph from 1986 to 1996. “Roly was a supreme expert of incredible integrity. Those terms might seem banal, right up until we imagine how comparatively couple journalists of any form, and in particular enterprise journalists, advantage the very same accolade,” he claimed.
“He was boundlessly painstaking, drily amusing, sceptical, immensely educated about British business, sincerely outraged by wrongdoing of any form. If it was attainable to place Roly’s qualities in a bottle and promote them to aspiring media editors, they would stand for anything we need to glance for in the incredibly ideal of British journalism.”
Charles Moore, who succeeded Sir Max, claimed Gribben blended experienced determination with gentlemanly manners.
“He experienced the good presents of lucid clarification and a sense of exactly where the genuine tale lay. Whilst he took enormous pleasure in his function, he never allow ego get in the way. As befitted a male who covered marketplace, Roly was immensely industrious. His stories could always be reliable, which is actually the optimum praise.”
In a occupation spanning extra than 60 yrs, the fantastic bulk of it at The Day by day Telegraph, Gribben chronicled quite a few of the great industrial and company tales of the write-up-war period of time, from the decrease of Britain’s car industry to the rise of the North Sea oil and gas sector.