John Humphrys - Career

Career

Humphrys joined TWW, a commercial television channel based in Wales. He joined the BBC in 1966 as the district reporter for Liverpool and the Northwest, where he reported the dock strikes of that time, sometimes for the national news. He then worked as a foreign correspondent initially having to go abroad and leave his family for six to nine month periods, at a time when his children were still young and growing up. Later he took his family with him to the United States and South Africa where he was sent to start news bureaux. He reported the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974 on television by satellite from the United States, the execution of Gary Gilmore in 1977, and later, when based in South Africa, he covered the transformation of Rhodesia into Zimbabwe.

Humphrys became disillusioned with living in hotels and life on-the-road as a foreign correspondent, and so he returned to London in 1980 to take up the post of BBC Diplomatic Correspondent. In 1981 he became the main presenter of the BBC's flagship Nine O'Clock News. This appointment marked a change in the BBC's approach to news broadcasting. With the appointment of Humphrys and John Simpson, the presenters of the news became part of the process of preparing the broadcast, rather than just reading a prepared script as with previous presenters. The work involved going to many meetings, working late and reading from an autocue, so in 1986 he immediately accepted a job on Today when he was unexpectedly offered it one day at about midnight by telephone. The job had become available because John Timpson was going to retire at the end of 1986. He started presenting Today in January 1987, joining Brian Redhead. He still made occasional appearances fronting BBC TV news bulletins in the 1990s. During the 1991 Gulf War he was a volunteer presenter on the BBC Radio 4 News FM service. From 1993 he presented the weekly On The Record political TV show until its demise in 2002.

He made the headlines on 28 August 2004 for giving the yearly MacTaggart lecture in which he made scathing criticism of the 'dumbing down' of British television. He criticised reality shows such as Big Brother, as well as the increasing violence in British soap operas. He made these criticisms after five years of being without a television set, and in the context of re-acquainting himself with the medium after the prolonged gap. Ironically, Humphrys is also the presenter of the revived version of Mastermind, which has also been accused of 'dumbing down'. After his criticism of reality television, Humphrys appeared the following year in Art School, a show which followed a celebrity reality format.

Humphrys attracted further controversy in September 2005 when he allegedly branded all politicians as liars and made comments about Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and John Prescott in an after-dinner speech which was subsequently leaked to The Times by Tim Allan, a former aide to the Prime Minister. On 6 September 2005, Humphrys was censured by the Corporation for his use of "inappropriate and misguided" language.

Humphrys has also presented Panorama. He has won many industry awards, including being named Journalist of the Year in February 2000 at an awards ceremony organised by The House Magazine and Channel 4; the Gold Sony Radio Award in 2003; and a silver platter for Crystal Clear Broadcasting from the Plain English Campaign.

John Humphrys has written several books, including Lost for Words, in which he criticizes what he sees as the widespread misuse of the English language, plus 'Devil's Advocate', 'Beyond Words', 'The Great Food Gamble' and 'In God We Doubt: Confessions Of A Failed Atheist'.

Humphrys is a columnist for the Daily Mail.

Humphrys is an agnostic, but has a curiosity to test his agnosticism and challenge established religions to see if they can restore his childhood belief in God. In 2006, he presented a BBC Radio 4 programme, titled "Humphrys in Search of God" where he spoke to leading British authorities on Christianity, Judaism and Islam to try to restore his faith.

Despite his reputation, Humphrys is prepared to send himself up: for example, when he appeared on the light entertainment programme Top Gear driving a Peel P50 around BBC White City.

On 12 November 2009 he became the only person to replace David Dimbleby as the host of Question Time when Dimbleby was recovering from a minor farming injury.

On 3 January 2011 Humphrys announced that he had extended his contract to present the Today programme, but in doing so had agreed to a pay cut. His Today interview of BBC director general George Entwistle on 11 November 2012 during an interview on the 'Today' programme was widely reported to have been a major factor in Entwistle's resignation later that day.