14/09/2020
Emma Barnett has been announced as the new presenter of Women’s Hour, the flagship womens programme on the country’s oldest speech based network, BBC Radio Four. Ms Barnett currently works for Radio 5 Live where she has helped anchor election coverage during the very close and tightly fought General Elections of 2015 and 2017. The present host of Women’s Hour, Jenni Murray, leaves at the beginning of October, following which there will be an interregnum during which several guest presenters will take the helm until Emma is in place in January. Ms Murray caused some raised eyebrows three years ago when she published an essay in which she questioned the right of transgender women to identify as female. Some felt that even if she held these views, as an impartial BBC presenter, she should have kept them off the record. Indeed, according to a report in the Guardian this week, the BBC is to ask journalists attached to them to stop tweeting their own opinions on any subject. This is because the leadership in the corporation feel that their much respected political impartiality has been undermined in recent years by rent a mouth presenters. This has in turn led to criticism by both the left and right of the political spectrum that the BBC is acting in a prejudiced fashion.
Women’s Hour has been on the air for nearly seventy years. In recent times, it has been joined by a little brother programme, Men’s Hour, which airs on BBC Radio 5Live.
