Robert Peston

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
 This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2009)
(Find sources: Robert Peston – news, books, scholar)
Robert Peston

Born Robert Peston
25 April 1960 (1960-04-25) (age 49)
Nationality British
Occupation Journalist, news and TV presenter, author, Stockbroker
Employer BBC
Known for Business editor of BBC News

Robert Peston (born 25 April 1960) is a British journalist. Since February 2006, he has been the Business Editor for BBC News. He became a household name with his reporting of the financial crisis of 2007–2009, especially with his scoop on the Northern Rock crisis, and his odd diction.

Contents

[edit] Early life and education

Peston is the son of economist and later Labour peer Maurice Peston and his NHS-employee wife. The couple believed passionately in state education, and sent Robert to the local comprehensive school, Highgate Wood Secondary School, in Crouch End, North London.[1] Peston graduated from Balliol College, Oxford in 1982, and then studied at the Université Libre de Bruxelles after winning a scholarship.

[edit] Career

Peston briefly worked at stockbroker Williams de Broë,[2] before he became a journalist in 1983 for the Investors Chronicle and joining The Independent newspaper for its launch in 1986. From 1989 to 1990 Peston worked for the short-lived Sunday Correspondent newspaper as Deputy City Editor, before being appointed City Editor of the Independent on Sunday in 1990.[3]

From 1991 to 2000, he worked for the Financial Times. At the FT, he was - at various times - Political Editor, Banking Editor and head of an investigations unit[3] (which he founded). During his time as Political Editor he memorably fell out with the then Downing Street Press Secretary Alastair Campbell who regularly mimicked Peston's habit of flicking back his hair and once responded to a difficult question with the words: "Another question from the Peston school of smartarse journalism."[4] His last position at the FT was Financial Editor (in charge of business and financial coverage).[3]

In 2000, he became editorial director of the online financial analysis service Quest,[3] owned by the financial firm, Collins Stewart. At the same time, he became a contributing editor of The Spectator and a weekly columnist for the Daily Telegraph In 2001 he switched allegiance from the Telegraph to the Sunday Times, where he wrote a weekly business profile, Peston's People, and left The Spectator for the New Statesman, where he wrote a weekly column.[5]

In 2002 he joined The Sunday Telegraph as City editor and assistant editor. He became associate editor in 2005.[3]

In late 2005, it was announced that Peston would succeed Jeff Randall as BBC Business Editor, responsible for business and city coverage on the corporation's flagship TV and radio news programmes, the BBC News Channel (then called BBC News 24), and its website. He broadcasts principally on Radio 4's Today Programme and the BBC News at Ten.

[edit] Possible Serious Fraud Office probe

It was announced[6] on 19 October 2008 that the Serious Fraud Office may launch a probe into the source of one of Peston's scoops. One, broken in September in the fraught atmosphere of the Global financial crisis of 2008, revealed that merger talks between HBOS and Lloyds TSB were at an advanced stage. In the minutes before the broadcast, buyers purchased millions of HBOS shares at the deflated price of 96p; in the hour following it, they could be sold for 215p.

[edit] Awards

Peston is a past winner of the Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year Award (2005), the London Press Club's Scoop of the Year Award (2005), Granada Television's What the Papers Say award for Investigative Journalist of the Year (1994) and the Wincott Young Financial Journalist of the Year (1986).

At the Royal Television Society's Television Journalism Awards 2007/8 Peston won both "Specialist Journalist of the Year" and "Television Journalist of the Year" for his coverage of the credit crunch and a string of 'scoops' associated with it. [7] He was also voted Best Performer in a Non-Acting Role in the Broadcasting Press Guild's 2009 awards[8] and Business Journalist of the Year in the London Press Club's 2009 awards [9].

In 2007, Peston's scoop on Northern Rock seeking emergency financial help from the Bank of England won the Royal Television Society's Television Journalism Award for Scoop of the Year and the Wincott Award for Business News/Current Affairs Programme of the Year. He was Journalist of the Year in the Business Journalism of the Year Awards for 2007/8, and also won in the Scoop category.[10]

Peston won the Work Foundation's Broadcast News Journalism Award and the Foundation's Radio Programme of the Year Award (for his File on 4, "The Inside Story of Northern Rock").[11] His blog won the digital media category in the Private Equity and Venture Capital Journalist of the Year Awards.[12]

[edit] Delivery style

In spite of his accolades, the transition from print media has been difficult for Peston, and his curious delivery on radio and television news has attracted criticism from diverse sources.[13] The Times, for example, brands his style "ragged and querulous",[14] and more recently "rambling" and "excruciatingly hard to listen to" [15]. The Telegraph identifies "strangulated diction" and "repetition of small words" among his traits; in the same article, though maintaining he is "loads better than [he] was", Peston himself concedes he is "still not as polished as some".[16] His characteristic mannerisms have been particularly well-observed by impressionist Rory Bremner.[17]

Peston has stated "I am not going to endeavour to become somebody hugely smooth and polished."[18]

[edit] Books

Peston published his biography of Gordon Brown Brown's Britain in January 2005, which details the rivalry between Gordon Brown and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair. Brown's Britain was described by Sir Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics, as "a book of unusual political significance". The fly cover of the book describes how "Peston was given unprecedented access to Gordon Brown and his friends and colleagues". Telling Brown's side of the Blair/Brown power struggle, it is believed that Peston has used the relationship then built up with Brown for many of his later financial news story "scoops" at the BBC.

In February 2008, Hodder & Stoughton published Peston's latest book, "Who Runs Britain? How the Super-Rich are Changing our Lives." In the Guardian, Polly Toynbee said of it: "Reading Peston's book, you can only be flabbergasted all over again at how Labour kowtowed to wealth, glorified the City and put all the nation's economic eggs into one dangerous basket of fizzy finance."[19]

[edit] Personal life

Peston is married to the writer Sian Busby. The couple have two sons. Peston relaxes by listening to his collection of 500 singles from the Seventies.[1] He supports Arsenal F.C.[20]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Robert Peston: 'I'm not going to become smooth and phoney'". The Telegraph. 2008-01-24. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/01/24/ftpeston124.xml. Retrieved on 2008-10-08. 
  2. ^ White, D. (2005-12-10). "Peston in line as BBC voice of business". Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2928108/Peston-in-line-as-BBC-voice-of-business.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-28. 
  3. ^ a b c d e James Silver (2005-12-19). "This man means business at the BBC". Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/dec/19/mondaymediasection7. Retrieved on 2009-02-28. 
  4. ^ "Robert Peston, thorn in Darling’s side". The First Post. 2008-10-08. http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/people,1482,robert-peston-thorn-in-darlings-side,48854. Retrieved on 2009-02-29. 
  5. ^ "Robert Peston". BBC. 2006-07-14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4950000/newsid_4950500/4950578.stm. Retrieved on 2009-02-28. 
  6. ^ SFO probe Guardian Online
  7. ^ RTS Website,(Retrieved 6th March 2009)
  8. ^ Broadcasting Press Guild Website, (Retrieved 1st May 2009)
  9. ^ London Press Club Website, (Retrieved 1st May 2009)
  10. ^ "Robert Peston". BBC. 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/news/robert_peston.shtml. Retrieved on 2009-02-28. 
  11. ^ "Winners of the Workworld media awards announced". The Work Foundation. 2008-01-28. http://www.theworkfoundation.com/pressmedia/news/newsarticle.aspx?oItemId=53. Retrieved on 2009-04-21. 
  12. ^ "BVCA Private Equity and Venture Capital Journalist of the Year Award Winners". BVCA. http://bvca.positive-internet.com/doc.php?id=793. Retrieved on 2009-04-21. 
  13. ^ Robert Peston WatchAnti-Peston blog
  14. ^ Peston criticised by The Times Times Online
  15. ^ Peston criticised again by The TimesTimes Online
  16. ^ Robert Peston Interview The Telegraph
  17. ^ Bremner, Bird and Fortune: Silly Money The Telegraph
  18. ^ Cheryl loses TV crown to, er, BBC news man - thelondonpaper, 27 March 2009
  19. ^ Polly Toynbee (2008-02-19). "Labour's election hopes rely on things they don't control". Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/19/labour.economy?gusrc=rss&feed=politics. Retrieved on 2009-02-28. 
  20. ^ BBC biography

[edit] External links


Media offices
Preceded by
Jeff Randall		 Business editor of BBC News
2006 - present		 Succeeded by
Incumbent
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peston"
Personal tools