Mishal Husain Attacks ‘Personality-Driven Presenters’ on Today Programme – Guido Fawkes

Mishal Husain Attacks ‘Personality-Driven Presenters’ on Today Programme

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Ex-Today Programme presenter Mishal Husain has given her first interview since leaving the BBC for Bloomberg. Vogue had the pleasure…

Husain says she has “a new sense of public service journalism now” and was probed on her fellow Today presenters Rajan and Barnett. She went on the attack without naming names:

‘“It has never been part of what I do,” she says of the general creep towards personality-driven media, “but I think, in a way, the last few months have taught me there’s an aspect I can embrace and that is personality-focused journalism doesn’t have to be bombastic. It doesn’t have to be about the presenters centring themselves. Hopefully, if they’re a personality with journalistic integrity, journalistic values, then they can be a conduit to the news for people.”’

She went on about her lack of ego: “What was true to me was that I would very rarely use the word ‘I’, actually, on air. I would quite often say, ‘We’ve talked to so and so,’ because you’re always part of a team. From the booking of guests, the deciding to go down a certain route, the writing of a brief – broadcasting is a team effort. So I would always say ‘we’ and very rarely use the word ‘I’. That’s just what came naturally to me.” Wipe away your tears…

Husain adds: “Most BBC presenters… if you’re in the headlines, it’s not usually for a good reason.” Tough for Barnett and Robinson…