Emily Maitlis

Emily Maitlis
Maitlis in 2010
Born	(1970-09-06) 6 September 1970 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Education	Queens' College, Cambridge (BA)
Occupation	Journalist, news presenter
Notable credit(s)	BBC News BBC London News Newsnight BBC News at One BBC News at Five BBC News at Six BBC News at Ten BBC Weekend News LBC Global
Spouse(s)	Mark Gwynne (m. 2001)
Children	2

Emily Maitlis (born 6 September 1970) is a British journalist, documentary filmmaker and former newsreader for the BBC. She was the lead anchor of BBC Two's news and current affairs programme Newsnight until the end of 2021 and has covered elections for the BBC mainly in the UK, US and Europe. In February 2022 Maitlis announced she was joining forces with ex-BBC journalist Jon Sopel to host a daily radio show and podcast for LBC Radio owned by media giant, Global.

Early life and education

Maitlis was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to British Jewish parents; her paternal grandmother was a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany. She was brought up in Sheffield, Yorkshire, and is the daughter of Professor Peter Maitlis FRS, Emeritus Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Sheffield, and Marion Maitlis, a psychotherapist.

She was educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield, a state comprehensive school, and then studied English at Queens' College, Cambridge. As of 2019 she was the only Newsnight presenter not to have attended a private school.

Career

Maitlis initially wanted to work as a director, prompted by her love for drama, but instead went into radio broadcasting. Prior to working in news, she was a documentary maker in Cambodia and China. She worked for the NBC network and was based in Hong Kong.

She spent six years in Hong Kong with TVB News and NBC Asia, initially as a business reporter creating documentaries, and then as a presenter in Hong Kong covering the collapse of the tiger economies in 1997. She also covered the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong with Jon Snow for Channel 4. She then moved to Sky News in the UK as a business correspondent, and then to BBC London News when the programme was relaunched in 2001.

During 2005, Maitlis appeared as the question-master on the game show The National Lottery: Come And Have A Go. She was a regular presenter on BBC News Channel for a decade between 2006 and 2016, alongside Ben Brown and Jon Sopel. She also presented BBC Breakfast and from May 2006 until July 2007 presented STORYFix on BBC News, a light-hearted look at the week's news set to up-beat music.

In July 2007, Maitlis was appointed as a contributing editor to The Spectator magazine, an unpaid post. This had been approved by her immediate manager, the head of BBC Television News Peter Horrocks, but the decision was subsequently overturned by his superior, the BBC News director Helen Boaden.

In 2012, Maitlis presented the US 2012 election coverage on BBC One and the BBC News Channel alongside David Dimbleby, when incumbent US President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were fighting for the presidency of the US. In 2016, she presented a news discussion programme called This Week's World on BBC Two, late afternoon on Saturdays.

Maitlis was a former main presenter of Newsnight on BBC Two, alongside Kirsty Wark and Emma Barnett. She first joined the programme as a relief presenter in 2006, working her way up to be lead anchor of the programme following the departure of Evan Davis in 2018. After each show, before bed, she answers emails from viewers and in April 2019 published a book Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News, describing how television news is produced.

In November 2019, Maitlis interviewed Prince Andrew, Duke of York, about his relationship with American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who died in August whilst awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The interview was broadcast on the BBC's Newsnight programme on 16 November 2019. Due in part to the disastrous fallout from Prince Andrew's performance during this interview, he later resigned from his royal duties.

As of 2019, Maitlis was amongst the highest paid BBC news and current affairs staff, receiving a salary between £260,000-£264,999. In July 2020 campaign group Defund the BBC ran billboards highlighting Maitlis' salary and that of Gary Lineker, with the heading "Are you still paying?"

In February 2020, her interview with Prince Andrew won Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year awards at the 2020 RTS Television Journalism Awards.

In 2020, Maitlis began presenting the BBC podcast, Americast, alongside the BBC's North America Editor Jon Sopel and Chief North America Reporter Anthony Zurcher. The podcasts originally focused on the 2020 election and contain analysis as well as an array of interviews from across the political scene. Americast received positive reviews and performed well on the iTunes chart, at points becoming the UK's most listened to podcast of any genre. The podcast was originally due to end after the election, however it continued due to its popularity.

On 22 February 2022, Maitlis announced her resignation from the BBC after an exclusive signing with Global the parent of LBC to launch a daily podcast and joint radio show with ex BBC journalist and fellow presenter Jon Sopel both renewing their successful Americast partnership style, only now for commercial radio.

Controversies

In a Newsnight discussion concerning Brexit on 15 July 2019 it was alleged that Maitlis had been "sneering and bullying" towards columnist Rod Liddle. Maitlis accused Liddle's columns of containing "consistent casual racism week after week", asking Liddle if he would describe himself as a racist. An investigation by the BBC Executive Complaints Unit upheld the complaints against her, agreeing that she had been "persistent and personal" in her criticism of Liddle, thus "leaving her open to the charge that she had failed to be even-handed" in the discussion between Brexit-supporting Liddle and his anti-Brexit opponent Tom Baldwin. Douglas Murray described the segment as "more of a drive-by shooting than an interview".

On 27 May 2020, the BBC said that Maitlis's introduction to Newsnight the night before, which discussed the allegations that the Prime Minister's chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, had contravened lockdown restrictions, "did not meet our standards of due impartiality". The broadcaster said in a statement: "The BBC must uphold the highest standards of due impartiality in its news output. Ms Maitlis started the show by declaring that Mr Cummings had 'broken the rules'". She stood aside as the host of Newsnight on that day after asking to take the night off. On 3 September 2020, a report by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit also ruled against Maitlis in the matter, stating Maitlis' comments "went beyond an attempt to set out the programme agenda" and that the "definitive and at times critical nature of the language" had "placed the presenter closer to one side of the debate" and thus "did not meet the required standards on accuracy or impartiality".

In February 2021, Maitlis was criticised over lacking impartiality after sharing a tweet by Piers Morgan which condemned the government. Conservative Party politician Andrew Bridgen said the BBC journalist appeared to be ignoring impartiality guidelines.

Personal life

Maitlis is married to investment manager Mark Gwynne, who is Catholic, whom she met while working in Hong Kong. She proposed to her husband while on holiday in Mauritius in 2000. They have two children, Milo and Max. Maitlis is a keen runner and a WellChild Celebrity Ambassador. She speaks fluent French, Spanish and Italian, and some Mandarin.

Maitlis presented the 2012 World Jewish Relief's annual dinner at Guildhall, London. Her family is Jewish, although she has said that they are "not very practising".

Stalking

During 2002, it was reported that Maitlis had been stalked for over a decade by a former platonic friend from her time at university, Edward Vines, who would appear at her place of work. He admitted to harassing Maitlis, and was sentenced to four months' imprisonment, but released because of the time he had spent in detention on remand. A restraining order was imposed. In September 2016, Vines was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for breach of the restraining order in respect of Maitlis. In January 2018, Vines was jailed for 3 years and 9 months for breaching a restraining order forbidding him from contacting Maitlis. He admitted two charges of breaching the restraining order by sending two letters to Maitlis, as well as emails and letters to her mother in 2015. In September 2019, while a prisoner at HMP Ranby in Nottinghamshire, he pleaded not guilty to breaching an order restraining him from contacting Maitlis by writing a letter with the intention of having it sent to her. That led to his being sentenced, in February 2020, to a further three years' imprisonment.

In a BBC Radio 5 Live interview, Maitlis likened the long-term harassment to having a chronic illness.

Awards

In 2012 Maitlis received an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University. She won Broadcast Journalist of the Year at the 2017 London Press Club Awards and the Network Presenter of the Year award at the RTS Television Journalism Awards in 2019 and 2020. She received the German Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Award in 2020.

Publications

• Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News (23 April 2019), 352 pages, ISBN 978-0241362853.

See also

• BBC News

External links

• Emily Maitlis at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC Press Office – Biography
• Emily Maitlis at Debrett's People of Today
• Guardian article, March 2006