Mishal Husain on turning the airwaves blue
The BBC Radio 4 Today presenter reveals the responsibility and privilege that goes with her job.
Image credit: BBC
The BBC Radio 4 Today presenter reveals the responsibility and privilege that goes with her job.
Mishal Husain is used to writing headlines, but early this year she made them after her now famous interview with the then home secretary James Cleverly.
In the interview Husain challenged him over his use of the swear word ‘s**t” and she went on to say it seven times in one minute.
Speaking to our own Saga Magazine, Mishal said: "I've never courted the headlines so when an interview I've done - like the one with the former Home Secretary James Cleverly - does hit the headlines I feel uncomfortable. I prefer being the voice or the face of the news, not the news itself."
“As for being dubbed, ‘the interviewer politicians dread’, I think it’s important to be well prepared because that’s the duty you have to the interviewee as well as the audience.”
Husain has been a presenter on Radio 4’s flagship news and current affairs programme for 10 years and is a best-selling author.
It’s an unforgiving routine that sees her in bed by 8pm ready for the 3am alarm call.
She says: “I get to work at 4am and those two hours until the show starts go so quickly. After 10 years I’m still figuring it out. You have to be disciplined: I’m writing my own intros, trying to find fresh angles and prep questions while eating breakfast from my Tupperware. It’s intense, but the most rewarding job I’ve ever had.”
And Husain says she never forgets how lucky she is.
“Being in this job has given me a ringside seat at some extraordinary moments of history.
“For Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and again for the King’s Coronation, I was standing outside Westminster Abbey, watching the processions and praying I would find the right words to convey the scenes before me to millions of listeners.
“There is a huge responsibility that comes with that, and it’s also an immense privilege. I am conscious of both, and never take being in this special position of trust for granted.”
Husain was born in England to Pakistani parents, and grew up in the Middle East and the U.K. Her new book is a family memoir about how the lives of her grandparents changed forever in 1947, as the new nation states of India and Pakistan were born.
My Family from Empire to Independence (Fourth Estate) RRP £18.99
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