MEDIA COLUMN BY HAMISH MACKAY
BBC News’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg will take over the BBC1 Sunday morning TV politics slot in September – replacing Andrew Marr who has moved to radio station LBC.
Scottish-born Laura, who is stepping down from her current role after the May local elections, said: ‘I couldn’t be more delighted. For decades, Sunday morning has been the moment to explore the events that shape us and to challenge and listen to our politicians. It’s an honour to take the chair for that conversation in the 2020s’.
The programme’s interim presenter Sophie Raworth will continue in the role until parliament breaks for its summer recess.
Laura Juliet Kuenssberg succeeded Nick Robinson as political editor at the BBC in July 2015, and is the first woman to hold the position Kuenssberg plans to step down as political editor at Easter 2022.
She has previously served as the BBC’s chief political correspondent and was the first business editor of ITV News. She was also the chief correspondent for Newsnight between February 2014 and July 2015.
Kuenssberg, pictured left, was born in Rome, Italy in 1976 to Nick and Sally Kuenssberg. Her father is a businessman; her mother worked in children’s services and received a CBE for this in the 2000 New Year Honours.
Her paternal grandfather was German-born Ekkehard von Kuenssberg, a co-founder and president of the Royal College of General Practitioners Her maternal grandfather was Lord Robertson, a judge of the Scots High Court of Justiciary, whose brother James Wilson Robertson was the last British Governor-General of Nigeria.
Her elder brother David is executive director of finance and resources at Brighton and Hove City Council. Her elder sister Joanna Kuenssberg is a former diplomat who has served as high commissioner to Mozambique.
Her father worked in Italy for British company Coats Viyella for a number of years. Kuenssberg grew up in Glasgow, with her brother and sister, and attended Laurel Bank School, a private girls’ school in the West End.
Kuenssberg studied History at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a first-class honours MA degree. She spent a year studying at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where she interned at the NBC News political programme Meet the Press.
After returning to the UK, she worked for local radio and then cable television in Glasgow, before joining BBC North East and Cumbria in March 2000 as a trainee journalist. Kuenssberg won a regional Royal Television Society award for her work as home affairs correspondent, and produced segments for the social affairs editor Niall Dickson.
She was appointed in July 2015 as the BBC’s political editor, the first woman to hold the position.
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Scottish-born broadcaster Eddie Mair is leaving London-based radio station LBC in August, apparently because his Monday to Thursday Drivetime show was cut to just two hours instead of three to make way for the new Tonight With Andrew Marr programme. However, Eddie has revealed he has been planning retirement for some time now.
The Scottish Daily Mail reported one of Mair’s friends as claiming: ‘He didn’t like it at all when an hour of his show was sliced off to make way for Andrew Marr, who was suddenly the big new star from the BBC’.
This is perhaps not the first time Dundee-born Mair, 56, has quit a top job on a matter of principle. He moved from the BBC to LBC in 2018 after more than 30 years at the corporation, following a refusal to take a drastic cut to his £350,000 salary. He was thought to be the only top-earning male presenter who refused to take a pay cut to help tackle a BBC’s equal pay cash crisis at that time.
Tom Cheal, managing editor of LBC, hailed Mair as ‘one of the finest broadcasters of our time’ and thanked the presenter for being ‘an integral part of LBC’s success’. Cheal added: ‘During his four years presenting Drivetime, Eddie has built an incredibly powerful connection with our audience – blending razor-sharp journalism with his trademark wit and warmth’. LBC is Global’s commercial news and talk radio station.
Mair commented: ‘My only regret about LBC is not joining sooner. I’m having a ball and all things being equal would probably carry on forever. They love radio at Global and support it. But the one thing I don’t have on my side is time. Like many others, during COVID-19 I had a rethink about life and in the summer of 2020 told my bosses and close friends and colleagues about my plans to leave. I have been at this for 40 years and I want to have a little time for me before I croak’.
Mair began his career at Radio Tay where he hosted the breakfast show, weekly phone-ins and news programmes. He joined the BBC in 1987 as a sub-editor for Radio Scotland and later joined BBC Radio Five Live after its launch in 1994 – presenting the Midday with Mair news show before moving to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme which he presented for 20 years.
Mair still has his admirers from his BBC days. Scottish Daily Mail columnist Emma Cowing told us: ‘I used to love Mair’s style on BBC Radio 4’s PM. His gentle questioning, dry wit and genuine ability to tell difficult stories with clarity and respect made him one of the finest voices on radio and, to be honest, when he left the increasingly left-leaning BBC Radio 4 in 2018, so did I. He will be missed’.
Reflecting on not getting the opportunity to succeed Jeremy Paxman on BBC 2’s Newsnight, Mair recalls being told his television manner resembled ‘someone who’s having an AK47 pointed at him by the camera operator’. He was also told sweetly: ‘You have a face for radio’.
Glasgow-born Andrew Marr defected to LBC from the BBC in February, declaring: ‘I am keen to get my own voice back’. Other leading BBC journalists following Marr to LBC include Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, pictured right, and former North America editor Jon Sopel.
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Further government intervention is needed to secure the future of the local news industry, the Society of Editors has warned.
Responding to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee’s inquiry into the Sustainability of Local Journalism, the Society said that operational and financial measures were urgently needed if local news platforms are to remain “at the heart of the communities and audiences they serve”.
Announced last month, the committee’s inquiry called for evidence on the operation of the market for local journalism and how it is affected by increasing competition from social media and public service broadcasters. It also invited evidence on the impact of the 2019 Cairncross Review and how the government can support local news outlets to develop sustainable business models.
Responding to the consultation, the Society of Editors said that a package of short-term financial support was needed for the industry as well as operational assistance including legislation to put the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) on a statutory footing.
It said: “Across the UK, local news platforms remain at the heart of the communities and audiences they serve, and they continue to fulfil a vital role in a democratic society. While the coronavirus pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated digital shifts and subscription strategies, the crisis has also shone a light on the value of local news.”
The Society said that while it had welcomed the launch of the Digital Markets Unit in 2021 to help address the imbalance between news publishers and technology giants, there remained an urgent need for ministers to now bring forward legislation to ensure that it has the powers to effect change and it must be given the authority to require platforms to negotiate with news publishers over payment for content.
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A new UK Government survey is asking journalists to share their experiences of threats and abuse. The research has been commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as part of the national action plan for the safety of journalists which was launched last year.
The survey aims to capture information that will feed into ongoing work to improve the safety of journalists by shaping informed and targeted measures implemented by bodies including the police, employers and government. The Society of Editors (SoE) and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have also been involved in the launch of the survey.
The DCMS explains: ‘This survey is to capture information needed to improve protection for UK-based journalists against online abuse and physical threats or danger.
“Threats to or abuse of journalists can be distressing – or worse – and it is essential we capture a full picture of what is happening; who it is happening to; and why it might be happening, so that it can be effectively addressed.
‘We need to understand the full range of experience – so we are asking journalists who have and those who have not encountered abuse or threats to fill out this questionnaire. We also need to capture what support journalists understand is available to them.’
The survey can be found here.