KNOWN for her cool, calm, politically astute and unbiased yet direct style, journalist Mishal Husain has emerged as the country’s one of the most notable interviewers. She is an interviewer whom politicians now dread – owing to her incisive style and a no-nonsense approach. Husain is best known for presenting Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC News at Ten on BBC 1. She has also guest hosted The Andrew Marr Show, as well as BBC Breakfast, BBC News at Six, BBC World News, Impact and HARD talk. She also occasionally fills in as a presenter for the weekday edition of BBC News at Ten and BBC News at Six.
One of her recent disruptive interview moments happened in November last year when she clashed with the Israeli government’s spokesperson Eylon Levy over the number of Palestinians killed since the Israel-Hamas war began and tension quickly built as she started to ask him about the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. In fact, the Today Programme is said to have dramatically changed after she came on board, about a decade ago as the first woman of colour to join the male-dominated team. However, apart from her incisive take on politicians, Husain is also known for her cool professional demeanour. No wonder she was called in to work when the queen was dying to announce her death on Radio 4 and was later chosen to present the news of the Hamas attack on Israel. Born in Northampton in 1973 to a journalist mother and doctor father who had emigrated from Pakistan, Husain’s family moved to the United Arab Emirates when she was two.
She returned to England for boarding school and later studied law at Cambridge University before becoming a BBC World anchor. Initially she worked behind the camera and the micro phone as a producer before joining the BBC. During the years that followed, she appeared in almost 20 TV shows, including BBC Weekend News, BBC News at Ten, and Impact. Apart from the UK, she has reported from around the world in places as far and wide as the Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Florence in Italy to Pakistan, China, Egypt and Norway. She has covered everything from the Olympics to refugee camps, international summits to the Shanghai Expo, to royal weddings and assassinations. She covered the live stories documenting the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Benazir Bhutto. Being in a highly demanding job and being a mother of three sons (one starting university while her twin boys are just sitting A-levels), Husain seems to be an expert in multitasking.
As she wrote in her recent book, The Skills – How to Win at Work, she states that she survived and progressed because she “married a decent human being”. Her husband, Meekal Hashmi, is a lawyer “who pulls his weight at home”. Already one of the BBC’s highest earners and top performers, Husain turned 50 last year. She is finishing a new book about her family in India and Pakistan, tracing their story from empire to independence.
