Mishal Husain

Early life

Husain was born in Northampton, England to parents originally from Pakistan. Her father attended Army Burn Hall College in Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Her grandfather, Syed Shahid Hamid, was a two-star general in the Pakistan army who had served in the British army in World War II, becoming a private Military Secretary of Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck.

When she was two, the family moved to the United Arab Emirates, where her father practised as a doctor. Husain attended the British School in Abu Dhabi; the family were also based in Saudi Arabia for a period. Husain returned to the UK at the age of 12 to continue her education at Cobham Hall, an independent school in Cobham, Kent. She studied Law at New Hall, Cambridge (now Murray Edwards College, Cambridge), followed by a master's degree in International and Comparative Law at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Journalism career

Husain gained her first experience of journalism at the age of 18, spending three months as a city reporter in Islamabad, Pakistan at the English-language newspaper The News. Then, while at university, she did several stints at the BBC as work experience.

Her first job was at Bloomberg Television in London from 1996, where she was a producer and sometime presenter. Two years later, in 1998, she joined the BBC as a junior producer in the newsroom and for the News 24 channel, and then in the Economics and Business Unit. Within a few months she moved in front of the camera and has since worked in a variety of roles: on the daily Breakfast programme, on Asia Business Report (based in Singapore), and as a presenter of business news on both BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. From September 2002 she was the corporation's Washington correspondent, serving as the main news anchor through the buildup to the invasion of Iraq and during the war.

She has interviewed many high-profile figures including Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy US Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Pentagon adviser Richard Perle and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame.

In 2011, Husain hosted Impact on BBC World News, but in spring and summer 2011 she was engaged on making a documentary on the Arab Spring, for airing in the autumn of 2011. She presents the Sunday evening editions of the BBC Weekend News on BBC One. On 8 May 2010, she published an autobiographical essay in The Independent based on a nostalgia trip to the UAE. Husain is also a relief presenter of the BBC News at Six and BBC News at Ten. She has occasionally presented Newsnight on BBC Two.

On 2 December 2011, it was announced that Husain would be part of the BBC's Olympic Presenting team. On 7 November 2013, it was announced that Husain would be part of the BBCs Commonwealth Games Presenting team. On 17 March 2013 she presented the last News at Ten to be broadcast from BBC Television Centre.

On 16 July 2013, the BBC's Director-General Lord Hall announced that Husain was to become a presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme in the autumn. She continues to present the Sunday evening editions of the BBC Weekend News on BBC One and on occasions on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel.

Husain presented her first edition of Today on 7 October 2013, when her co-presenter was John Humphrys.

Husain won the Broadcaster of the Year Award at the London Press Club Awards in 2015.

Other work and awards

When the first series of Star Spell – a spin-off from Hard Spell that had only appeared before as a one-off episode – aired, Husain appeared as word pronouncer, replacing Nina Hossain. She continued in this role throughout the second series of Hard Spell. Husain appeared in a round of the BBC's Celebrity Mastermind in 2010, coming third out of four. Her specialised subject was the Narnia books of C. S. Lewis. She is also one of the judges for the Amnesty International Media Awards. She featured on a show entitled Gandhi that was broadcast by the BBC in March 2012. She also featured as the morning anchor presenter on BBC One during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Husain is an ambassador for the charity Mosaic, which helps young people from deprived communities to realise their talents and potential.

In January 2014, Husain was awarded the Services to Media award at the British Muslim Awards.

Personal life

Husain married Meekal Hashmi in July 2003. The couple have three sons.

Amid widespread condemnation of the killing of ISIL hostages in 2014, Husain voiced support for the use of social media to denounce its extremism. In an interview with the Radio Times, she urged Muslim scholars to use social media to condemn its attempt to use horrific videos to draw support in the West, from the leading British Islamic organisations. Husain, who is the first Muslim presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, said, "I think the Not In My Name campaign is a very positive development because outrage is shared by all right-thinking people. I would really like to see much more of the counterpoint from a theological perspective, with scholars taking to social media to refute the awful arguments we see put forward in those videos."