Kate Adie: Where is Kate when her country needs her?

You knew it was a war, our boys used to say, when a certain BBC correspondent turned up in her flak jacket and pearls. So why has she been sidelined?

Kate Adie remains the best-known, most respected woman reporter in the UK. Her pearls-and-flak-jacket ensemble continues to signal the deep gravity of an unfolding news story. And the much-hyped new generation of young women reporters do not, as yet, have her stature or authority.

Why then are we seeing so little of the BBC's chief correspondent? Why is the audience being deprived of the thrilling sight of her Charlotte Rampling eyes staring down the barrel of a camera, or the sound of her precision vowels making mincemeat of the towering name of Osama bin Laden? The BBC was accused of wasting its best asset, with The Sun taking the corporation to task for failing to give "fearless Kate" appropriate prominence after the 11 September terrorist attacks in America. Adie had been flown to New York, only to be withdrawn after a few days and dispatched to Oman.

Now the headlines have turned against her after she disclosed on air the Prime Minister's plans to visit Oman. The Government had requested that Mr Blair's movements not be revealed. By all accounts, the mistake was made by the wider BBC production team, and was not the fault of Adie who was asked a leading question on air. Nonetheless, The Sun's starry view of its heroine was instantly reversed. "Sack Kate Adie," screeched the front page on Tuesday.

Adie's presence on television can be a tabloid story in itself – as is her absence, and pretty much anything else that happens to her. Broadcasters, both inside and outside the BBC, are divided in their opinions of her, but all agree that she is a "huge character". In 1980 when she reported the siege of the Iranian embassy in London, the contrast was striking between the fresh-faced 35-year-old who looked as if she had escaped from the pages Country Life, and the sheer horror of what was happening inside the embassy. The SAS stormed in, as black smoke clouds shot out – and Kate Adie, crouching and clear, kept her head.

In the public mind, she seemed to have emerged from nowhere to conquer the airwaves among the blokeish ranks. But by 1980 she had 12 years of hard-graft BBC production experience behind her. After securing a degree in Scandinavian studies at Newcastle University – she was born and brought up in Sunderland but the vowels have changed a bit since then – she pitched up at the BBC's local radio station in Durham in 1968 and got a job as a technician.

Two years later she moved to BBC Radio Bristol and started a quick succession of jobs that saw her producing farming, arts, sports and religious programmes. Then she switched to regional television, as a reporter in Plymouth, Southampton and Brighton. The move to national news came in 1979, just months before the embassy siege.

In 1986, with the American bombing of Tripoli, Adie became a national icon. She also started to attract controversy. An interview with Colonel Gadaffi angered Norman Tebbit, the Tory party chairman, who then publicly accused the BBC of inaccuracy and imbalance.

She started to acquire a reputation for uncompromising straight-talking. When she returned to Tripoli in 1992 the Libyans reinforced the image by issuing a "save us from Kate Adie" message, saying they wanted her to leave the country for "causing trouble and insulting and scolding behaviour". Some of her own crews have had similar reactions to her conduct. A telex sent from Tripoli to the BBC complained of the "incomprehensible behaviour of your correspondent Miss Kate Adie, with whom we suffered a lot".

By 1989, and Tiananmen Square, the arrival of Kate Adie at any big story was enough to send rival journalists into a frenzy of backstabbing. Her manner was abrasive, but envy played its part. She was not only Britain's best-known woman correspondent, but also an international rarity.

In the event, Tiananmen Square took Adie's reputation even higher. She was grazed in the arm by a bullet, which then struck a young man and killed him. When she returned, she picked up yet more awards to add to an already glittering collection. To date she has acquired six honorary degrees, three Royal Television Society Awards, several International Television Awards and Bafta's prestigious Richard Dimbleby Award. In 1993 she received an OBE. She has visited pretty much every hotspot that television news has covered. The list includes the Gulf War, Bosnia, Armenia, Albania, Rwanda, Kosovo and Sierra Leone.

Now 56, she is single and has never had children. A number of correspondents recall her kindness to them when they were starting in a tough trade. She can be unstinting with her generosity and advice. In the early 1990s Adie, who was adopted as a baby, sought and found her birth mother and sister. The tabloids were quick to jump on the story. Her mother, Dean Dunnet, had become pregnant during the war while her husband was serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps in India. To avoid scandal, the infant was given up for adoption. It was clear, when the story came out, that Adie, while being moved by the discovery, had not sought any publicity for it. Her wish for privacy, once again, won her respect.

Given the elevation of Kate Adie to these heights in the national psyche, it seems strange that she is not at the heart of the biggest news story in decades. Instead it is John Simpson who is nipping in and out of Afghanistan in women's clothing, while Adie, a bona fide woman, is more peripherally placed with the troops in Oman.

The BBC argues that Adie is at the core of its coverage. When in New York, she broadcast on BBC World, a commercial TV channel which has up to 300 million viewers. "People in the UK do not realise how important BBC World is, and how important it is to the corporation," says one of Adie's colleagues. "Tariq Aziz [the Iraqi foreign minister] and Kofi Annan [Secretary General of the UN] watch it like hawks."

Then, he adds, Adie presents From Our Own Correspondent on Radio 4. It is wrong to say she is not busy. But that is not the whole story. Her supporters acknowledge that, given her standing, she is not used as a prime asset. The conversation always goes back to her manner, to the fact that she is "difficult" – a word that countless of her colleagues use to describe her. Another is "strong-willed". The ITN broadcaster Sandy Gall went further in his 1994 autobiography, branding her a "prima donna".

But, as one BBC news executive puts it: "All the BBC's most senior correspondents are difficult to deal with. John Simpson is difficult, but just in a quieter way." The point is that pushiness, and the ability to get what you want, is often considered a positive characteristic in a foreign correspondent.

Kate Adie now needs a champion. And perhaps she deserves a break, too. Maybe it is time to send her to a new front, where they could do with a few strong-minded women to shake them up – the House of Lords would do nicely.