Alex ‘Candid’ Cameron

Posted: May 11th, 2011

Alex Cameron, who died recently, was the Chief Sports Reporter of the Daily Record for over 20 years. During his distinguished career he was affectionately known as ‘Candid’ and sometimes ‘Chiefy’.

Alex began his career, stretching over 50 years, on a local weekly paper, the Stirling Journal. After a stint with Scottish Newspaper Services in Glasgow, he joined the Edinburgh Office of the Daily Mail in 1952 where he spent the next 16 years.

In 1968 he moved to the Daily Record where he remained until he retired in 2000. Alex became one of Scotland’s widest read sports journalists. He was a frequent face on television for almost 30 years, where he hosted and commented on a wide range of sports and was also a regular voice on radio.

One of his most significant scoops was at the Munich Olympics, when after the shooting of the Israeli athletes he posed as a Russian official, gained access to the Olympic Village and filed his story from there.

Alex was probably the only journalist in the world to attend and report on:

· Eight Olympic Games
· Seven World Cups
· Seven Commonwealth Games
· Four World Athletic Championships
· Two World Boxing title fights

In 2001 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Scottish Press Awards.

Allan Herron, a friend of Alex and retired sports journalist, (Sunday Mail), said,” As a journalist and sports commentator Alex Cameron was undoubtedly in a league of his own.”