HEAVYWEIGHT journalist and Channel 4’s longest-serving presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy is known for being assertive, when it comes to asking tough questions. In his latest crusade, he is calling for better representation at the top levels of media houses.
A couple of months ago, Guru-Murthy raised the issue of representation at the top levels of media houses, when he suggested it is time for a black or Asian person to run a British television channel.
Speaking at Channel 4’s Inclusion festival held on November 30 last year, he pointed out how there are “still no black or Asian people running our biggest broadcasters”.
Guru-Murthy is the main anchor of Channel 4 News,, hosting its major political debates during elections, referenda and important events. He also interviews writers, thinkers, artists and politicians at length for the podcast Ways to Change the World and presents the foreign affairs series Unreported World, produced by Channel 4 News. Over the years, he has made documentaries on Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq to Mexico, South Africa, Myanmar and India.
Apart from these news-related shows, he also presents live controversial programmes, including the first live televised Autopsy,The Exorcism and How Racist Are you?”.
Guru-Murthy's career began in 1988 with the BBC's discussion programme Open to Question and the youth current-affairs programme Reportage. While at Oxford University he presented BBC2's Asian current-affairs programmes East and Network East. He presented and reported for children's news programme Newsround from 1991 to 1994. He worked as a producer and reporter for Newsnight for three years, and was one of the launch presenters for BBC News 24 in 1997.
Guru-Murthy joined Channel 4 in 1998. He was the main presenter of Channel 4 News at Noon between 2003 and 2009. His career saw him hosting a series of iconic moments like Channel 4's coverage of ceremonies at the 2012 Paralympics, 2014 Winter Paralympics, and reburial of Richard III.He has fronted big news events from the Omagh bombing, 9/11 tragedy, the Mumbai attacks, to special war reports from Syria, Yemen and Gaza, the Arab Spring in Egypt, American, European and Indian politics and numerous natural disasters.
Viewers also remember him hosting Britain’s Next PM: The Conservative Leadership Debate in July 2022 on Channel 4 where four Tory MPs- Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt- debated over the succession of then prime minister Boris Johnson who in turn was in the process of stepping down amid a series of scandals and accusations.
He spends much of his time working and reporting on British politics, having interviewed every prime minister and opposition leader since joining Channel 4 News and covered every election. He does special political shows for Channel 4 such as the Ask the Chancellors debate. The Royal Television Society Journalism Awards nominated him for its News Presenter of the Year award in 2010 and 2014.
It isn’t all serious - Guru-Murthy has appeared in a comic documentary about the band Gorillaz, as a guest on The News Quiz and Taskmaster, and in cameo appearances for Bremner, Bird and Fortune, Shaun of the Dead and Dead Set.
Guru-Murthy’s interview style is what that sets him apart from his peers. One of his earlier significant interviews was one with former Labour MP Jim Devine in February 2010 during which Guru-Murthy quizzed him on his expenses prompting the politician to admit to "moving money around."
The interview became key evidence in court in Devine's fraud case - for which he was then sentenced to 16 months in jail.
In 2013, director Quentin Tarantino refused to answer a question on whether film violence is linked to real-life violence. The following year, he interviewed actor-director Richard Ayoade who became increasingly nonplussed during the interview.
In the following couple of years, actor Robert Downey Jr cut the conversation short during an interview and left the room when the discussion veered towards actor's personal life and particularly his past substance abuse. The latter interview has since been watched over 12 million times on YouTube.
Guru-Murthy’s interview with Conservative MP Ben Bradley in March 2019 is also regarded as something of a classic. The Mansfield MP had voted Remain but has since backed Leave, though without always voting with the government.
In October 2020, he hosted a live debate show titled Live: Divided Britain: The Lockdown Debate, centred around the coronavirus lockdown measures introduced by the government.
Guru-Murthy was born in 1970 in Liverpool. His father, an Indian consultant radiologist, worked in Blackburn and Burnley. The family lived for some years in Liverpool before moving to a village outside Burnley.Guru-Murthy attended the then-private Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Blackburn, before studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Hertford College, Oxford.His sister Geeta Guru-Murthy is also is a BBC News journalist.
Guru-Murthy is a trustee of Duchenne UK. He founded the Duchenne Dash, a 24-hour cycle ride from London to Paris, in 2013. He was also appointed to the board of trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2018, and was reappointed for the role in 2021.
In 2021, the famed news reporter revealed on social media he was living with a genetic heart condition during the pandemic.
The 52-year-old journalist has addressed racism in the country at multiple times. Most recently at the Channel 4’s event, he revealed that he had experienced racism while growing up as a minority in 1980s Lancashire. He recalled how he was called racist names, pushed around and picked on by a racist bully.
However, Guru-Murthy said he believed that his Asian background helped him early in his career when the BBC gave him his first presenting slot aged 18, saying being brown “wasn’t a problem – it was a bonus.”
