Career
After he undertook National Service as a corporal clerk with the Brigade of Gurkhas in Hong Kong, Friend served a ten year freelance career in various British newspapers before starting his broadcast career with the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1969. Starting out as the Northern Ireland correspondent of the Radio 4"s Today programme, Friend served four years in Northern Ireland witnessing sectarian violence at the start of The Troubles. After a short stint in Vietnam he got his first official overseas television posting as the British Broadcasting Corporation"s first Australia correspondent in 1973, five years as the British Broadcasting Corporation"s Tokyo correspondent, and finally New York city as British Broadcasting Corporation Breakfast correspondent where his producer was Mark Thompson, who went on to become Director General of the British Broadcasting Corporation
After 20 years with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Friend returned to the United Kingdom to work on the start-up Sky News.
In June 2003 he was awarded an Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to broadcasting in the Queen"s Birthday Honours List, shortly before his retirement presenting alongside Creegor on 23 October, exactly 14 years after his first appearance.
Friend was a guest presenter on LBC News 1152 during the 2005 United Kingdom general election. Friend was married with two daughters.
He died on 8 October 2008 from a brain tumour. The University of Kent’s Centre for Journalism has had for many years, since 2009, the Sky News Bob Friend Memorial Scholar.
Several previous scholars now work from KM News, Daily Mail Newspaper and Sky News.
The annual scholarship of 2013 was presented to Georgia Fry by Neil Dunwoodie, Executive Producer Sky News, at the 2013 Bob Friend Memorial Lecture (by Stephanie Flanders British Broadcasting Corporation Economics editor ) at the Pilkington Lecture Theatre at the University of Kent’s Medway Campus in Chatham.