Anushka Asthana

Last updated

Anushka Asthana
BornMarch 1980
Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England
Education Manchester High School for Girls
Alma mater St John's College, Cambridge
Occupation(s) Journalist, television presenter
Known for ITV News

Co-presenter of Peston

Presenter of Today in Focus
TitleDeputy Political Editor, ITV News

Anushka Asthana (born March 1980) is a British journalist and television presenter. She is the current Deputy Political Editor of ITV News, and is also a co-presenter of Peston .

Contents

Early life

Asthana was born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and raised in Stalybridge, Greater Manchester. [1] Her parents, both doctors, moved to the United Kingdom from New Delhi, India in the 1970s. [2] Asthana attended the private school Manchester High School for Girls and studied Economics at St John's College, Cambridge. [3]

Career

Asthana joined The Observer as a general reporter in 2003 and spent several months at The Washington Post in 2006 on the Laurence Stern fellowship. [1] Later she was a political correspondent for The Times before beginning to work for Sky News in 2013 as a political correspondent. [4] [5]

In succession to Patrick Wintour, Asthana was appointed in December 2015 as the joint political editor of The Guardian , in a job share arrangement with Heather Stewart which began in early 2016. [6] [7]

From 23 April 2017, Asthana covered the maternity leave of Allegra Stratton as the co-presenter of Peston on Sunday . [8] Since September 2018, Asthana has co-presented ITV's Wednesday night flagship politics discussion programme Peston . That year she decided to leave her role as the joint political editor of The Guardian to present its new daily podcast Today in Focus, later being promoted to editor-at-large, replacing Gary Younge. [9] [10]

Asthana left The Guardian in 2021 to join ITV News as deputy political editor to Robert Peston. [11] [12] She was later linked to the vacant job of BBC political editor, although she ultimately remained with ITV. [13]

Related Research Articles

<i>Newsnight</i> BBC Television current affairs programme

Newsnight is the BBC's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. It is broadcast weeknights at 22:30 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel; it is also available on BBC iPlayer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GMTV</span> Former UK breakfast television franchisee

GMTV, now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national ITV breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end. The final edition of GMTV was broadcast on 3 September 2010.

ITV News is the branding of news programmes on the British news television channel of ITV. ITV has a long tradition of television news. Independent Television News (ITN) was founded to provide news bulletins for the network in 1955, and has since continued to produce all news programmes on ITV. The channel's news coverage has won awards from the Royal Television Society, Emmy Awards and BAFTAs. Between 2004 and 2008, the ITV Evening News held the title of "RTS News Programme of the Year". The flagship ITV News at Ten has won numerous BAFTA awards, and also being named "RTS News Programme of the Year" in 2011, 2015, 2021 and 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alastair Stewart</span> English former journalist and newscaster

Alastair James Stewart OBE is an English former journalist and newscaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Peston</span> British journalist, currently ITV News Political Editor (born 1960)

Robert James Kenneth Peston is an English journalist, presenter, and author. He is the Political Editor of ITV News and host of the weekly political discussion show Peston alongside ITV News Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana. From 2006 until 2014, he was the Business Editor of BBC News and its Economics Editor from 2014 to 2015. He became known to the wider public with his reporting on the 2007–2008 financial crisis, especially with his exclusive information on the Northern Rock crisis. He is the founder of the education charity Speakers for Schools.

Thomas Matthew Bradby is a British journalist and novelist who currently presents the ITV News at Ten. He was previously political editor for ITV News from 2005 to 2015, and presented The Agenda with Tom Bradby, a political discussion series, from 2012 to 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Wintour</span> British journalist

Patrick Wintour is a British journalist and the diplomatic editor of The Guardian. He was the political editor of The Guardian from 2006 to 2015 and was formerly the newspaper's chief political correspondent for two periods, from 1988 to 1996, and 2000 to 2006. In the intervening period he was the political editor of The Observer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Etchingham</span> English journalist (born 1969)

Julie Anne Etchingham is an English journalist who works as a television newsreader with ITV News. A graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, Etchingham joined the BBC as a trainee after completing her studies, and went on to present the children's news programme Newsround in 1994. She joined Sky News in 2002, and also presented editions of Five News when Sky won the contract to produce news programming for Channel 5 in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allegra Stratton</span> British journalist (born 1980)

Allegra Elizabeth Jane Stratton is a British former political aide, journalist, and writer who served as Downing Street Press Secretary under Boris Johnson from November 2020 to April 2021.

Christopher Ship is an English journalist and presenter, currently working as the ITV News Royal Editor since 2017. He was the former Deputy Political Editor from 2013 to 2017. His position as Deputy Political Editor was filled by current Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana.

Heather Stewart is an English journalist who is a special correspondent for The Guardian. She was formerly political editor of The Guardian, and before that economics editor of The Observer and before that, The Observer's business editor.

<i>Peston</i> (TV programme) British political discussion programme on ITV

Peston is the flagship political discussion programme on British television network ITV, usually recorded live on Wednesday evenings at 9 pm. It is broadcast live on Twitter and then played out after the News at Ten at 10.45pm. It was announced on 5 June 2018 that the show would launch in the autumn of that year as a continuation of Peston on Sunday. The programme is presented by Robert Peston, the Political Editor of ITV News, and features a combination of interviews with politicians and public figures alongside analysis of the major news events of the week.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beth Rigby</span> British journalist, currently Sky News Political Editor

Elizabeth Frances Rigby is a British journalist. She has worked for Sky News since 2016, and was appointed Political Editor in 2019. Rigby has previously worked as a newspaper journalist for the Financial Times and The Times. Rigby presents a talk show on Thursday nights on Sky News called Beth Rigby Interviews, which launched in March 2022.

In the aftermath of relatively poor results in the 2021 local elections, Keir Starmer carried out a May 2021 shadow cabinet reshuffle.

On 29 November 2021, Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom, carried out a reshuffle of his shadow cabinet. The slimmed down shadow cabinet, was seen to be Starmer creating a top team in his own image.

Kate McCann is a British journalist who has been the political editor of Times Radio. Prior to this, she was political editor of TalkTV between 2022 and 2023, a political correspondent for Sky News between 2018 and 2022, and The Daily Telegraph's senior political correspondent between 2015 and 2018.

References

  1. 1 2 Asthana, Anushka (26 November 2006). "My heart belongs to Delhi". The Observer. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  2. ↑ Asthana, Anushka (14 October 2013). "Uncertain Journey Towards New Life In Britain". Sky News. Archived from the original on 18 October 2013.
  3. ↑ Asthana, Anushka. "Anushka Asthana: Class of 1998". Manchester High School for Girls. Archived from the original on 16 September 2015.
  4. ↑ "Times political reporter Anushka Asthana moves to Sky News". Press Gazette . 16 May 2013. Archived from the original on 1 November 2014.
  5. ↑ Thorne, Anna (16 May 2014). "The highs and lows of the most exciting job you can do". The Oxford Student . Archived from the original on 1 July 2014.
  6. ↑ Ponsford, Dominic (11 December 2015). "Guardian 'breaks the mould' by making Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart political editor on job share". Press Gazette. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  7. ↑ Jackson, Jasper (11 December 2015). "Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart to share role of Guardian political editor". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  8. ↑ Peston on Sunday (20 April 2017). "Anushka Asthana". Twitter . Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  9. ↑ "Guardian appoints new deputy editor and executive editorial team". The Guardian. 3 December 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  10. ↑ Asthana, Anushka (24 November 2018). "Today in Focus: our new podcast bringing you the world in 20 minutes". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
  11. ↑ Asthana, Anushka [@AnushkaAsthana] (23 March 2021). "Really excited to be joining ITV news as deputy political editor to @peston working with the brilliant @amberdebotton once more! Really looking forward to joining a great team..." (Tweet). Retrieved 31 March 2021– via Twitter.
  12. ↑ Wilson, Amy (30 March 2021). "ITV News hires Anushka Asthana as deputy political editor". ResponseSource. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
  13. ↑ "Anushka Asthana and Sophy Ridge head all-female shortlist for BBC Political Editor". inews.co.uk. 17 March 2022. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
Media offices
Preceded by Political Editor of The Guardian
2016–2018
With: Heather Stewart 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Editor-at-large of The Guardian
2019–2021		Incumbent
Preceded by Deputy Political Editor of ITV News
2021–present		Incumbent
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.