Ethnicity British Asian Name Samira Ahmed | Years active 1990-present Parents Lalita Ahmed Children 2 | |
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Occupation broadcaster, journalist and writer Nominations Indian Telly Jury Award for Best Costumes for a TV Program Similar People Lalita Ahmed, Scott Maslen, Keith Chegwin, Natalie Lowe, Lucy Mathen | ||
Samira ahmed interview
Samira Ahmed (born 15 June 1968, London) is a British freelance journalist, writer and broadcaster at the BBC, where she has presented Radio 4's PM, The World Tonight, Sunday and Front Row. She also presented two Proms for BBC Four in 2011. On BBC Radio 3, Ahmed is one of the presenters of Night Waves.
Contents
- Samira ahmed interview
- Newsnight discussion on the news with alain de botton samira ahmed and alastair campbell
- Early life
- Journalism career
- References
Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent and for The Spectator magazine's Arts Blog. She was a reporter and presenter on Channel 4 News from 2000 to 2011. She presented Sunday Morning Live, a topical discussion programme on BBC One from 2012 to 2013.
Newsnight discussion on the news with alain de botton samira ahmed and alastair campbell
Early life
Ahmed's mother Lalita (née Chatterjee, born 1939, Lucknow) worked for the Hindi service of the BBC World Service in Bush House. Ahmed was educated at Wimbledon High School, a girls' independent school in Wimbledon, south London, and read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, between 1986 and 1989. During this period she edited Isis and the Union magazines, both Oxford University student publications, and won the Philip Geddes Journalism Prize for her work on student newspapers. After graduation she completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Newspaper Journalism at City University, London. She recalls that Lucy Mathen, the first female Asian reporter on BBC television, who worked on John Craven's Newsround, was an inspirational figure for her, as was broadcaster Shyama Perera, who was working in Fleet Street at around the same time.
Journalism career
Ahmed became a BBC news trainee in 1990. She was a BBC journalist until December 1997, working as a news correspondent, a reporter on Newsnight and the Today programme, and a presenter on BBC World and BBC News 24. Shortly after her marriage, she became the BBC's Los Angeles correspondent and covered the O. J. Simpson trial, before working as an anchor and political correspondent in Berlin for Deutsche Welle TV.
She joined Channel 4 News in April 2000 shortly after having her first child, and became a presenter after having her second child in July 2002. In June 2011 Ahmed left Channel 4, and went freelance.
In 2009 she won Broadcast of the Year at the annual Stonewall Awards for her special report on "corrective" rape of lesbian women in South Africa. The report was made after ActionAid contacted her about their campaign against homophobic crime. She won the BBC's Celebrity Mastermind, with a specialist round on Laura Ingalls Wilder, in December 2010.
Since October 2011 she has been a regular newspaper reviewer on Lorraine. From June 2012 to November 2013 she presented the third and fourth series of Sunday Morning Live on BBC One. In January 2013, Ahmed succeeded Ray Snoddy as presenter of Newswatch on the BBC News Channel.
She is a Visiting Professor of Journalism at Kingston University and a regular contributor to The Big Issue.