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Kate Silverton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kate Silverton | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Kate Silverton |
| Born | 4 August 1970 (aged 37) England, UK |
| Occupation | Newsreader/ Presenter |
| Years active | 1999-present |
Kate Silverton (born August 4, 1970, in England, UK)[1] is an English newsreader,presenter and journalist working for the BBC. She currently presents the BBC's 90-second 8pm bulliten on BBC One, as well as reporting from abroad and for Panorama.
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Silverton was born to Terry Silverton, a registered hypnotherapist and Patricia Silverton (née Anthony) who now heads her daughter's company. Silverton has an elder sister, Claire. Silverton attended West Hatch High School in Chigwell, Essex, where she was a champion swimmer and started to compete in the triathlon.[2] Silverton also practices judo. She spent a year studying Arabic and Middle Eastern politics before switching and has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Durham.
Silverton worked in finance for a London-based bank before becoming a journalist. She trained with the BBC working on Look North news before becoming a reporter and presenter at Tyne Tees Television.
Silverton was a presenter on five's The Wright Stuff, The Heaven and Earth Show, Big Strong Boys and Weekend Breakfast on BBC Radio Five Live, before joining BBC News 24 and BBC Breakfast.
From 2005 until December 2007 she was the 8.30-11am presenter on BBC News 24 along with colleague Simon McCoy. She was also a regular relief presenter for BBC Breakfast, presenting during Sian Williams maternity leave.
In December 2006, over the Christmas period, she travelled to Basra to anchor for BBC News to report on the Iraq War. She produced several reports for BBC Breakfast and BBC News 24, as well as the main news bulletins on BBC One.
Kate is also a regular host of the annual British Computer Society Awards; often held at the Grosvenor House hotel in Park Lane, London.
In December 2007, Kate was named as the new presenter of BBC One's 8pm bulliten - a 90-second round up of the news.
She will present each Monday-Thursday until March 2008 when she takes over presenting duties on the BBC's One O'Clock News, covering for Sophie Raworth's maternity leave[3].
Whilst presenting the 8pm bulletin, Kate will also do more work for Panorama as well as some foreign broadcasting for the corporation and occasional relief appearances on BBC Breakfast.
In September 2005, Silverton drew some media attention when her BBC News 24 co-anchor Philip Hayton, who had worked for the BBC for 37 years, resigned his position six months into a year's contract.[4] The Daily Telegraph, without substantiation and quoting an unnamed 'insider', reported that he turned to Silverton during a break and said "I don't like you".[5] The Daily Mirror quoted another BBC 'insider' as saying that Silverton is "...pushy beyond belief. Behind her big superficial smile she can be a really aggressive, manipulative monster who always gets what she wants."[2] Mr. Hayton merely cited "incompatibility" with Silverton as his reason and when his managers refused to move Silverton to another time slot he left. Silverton was in the peculiar position of having to go through the morning's paper review live on air the morning the story broke, avoiding any discussion of the story and chiding her new co-anchor when he looked to refer to it.[5] Hayton said that he left the BBC "without bitterness or rancour".[5]
However several figures spoke up for Silverton. Jon Sopel, a fellow BBC News 24 presenter, who was Silverton's co-anchor at News 24 for several months, commented on the incident saying "She's warm and friendly. With Kate, what you see is what you get - she's bright, lively, talented and vivacious. I like and trust her. Yes, she's ambitious... but aren't we all?"[2]
Rod Liddle, another of Silverton's former co-presenters and also former programme editor of BBC Radio Four's Today programme said: "Kate is intelligent, attractive and has strong opinions. She is far cleverer than Hayton. There are plenty of very stupid women at the BBC but she isn’t one of them. Philip probably needs to work on an island where there are no women. She was absolutely lovely, good fun, professional, intelligent and devoid of the usual afflictions of TV presenters - narcissism and greed".[6] It was later revealed while the pair worked on a short-lived BBC TV politics programme in 2003 Silverton allegedly hit Liddle, who said: "I made a stupid comment about the disabled which Kate rightly took exception to. We took the fight out of the pilot. It's good to get these things out before we go on air. My admiration for Kate knows no bounds".[7]
In September 2007, Silverton had the honour of making it into Private Eye's famous "Lookalike" section, being said to resemble Gok Wan, presenter of the TV show "How To Look Good Naked" [1].
- ^ Newsroom spat forces BBC anchor to quit, Daily Telegraph, 27 September 2005.
- ^ a b c "Attractive, ambitious and very scary." Nick Webster, Daily Mirror: 3 October 2005
- ^ Kate Silverton to present new bulliten - Kate's official website
- ^ BBC newsreader quits over 'clash' BBC News Online.
- ^ a b c "Chemistry as Silverton clicks with new partner" Richard Alleyne, Daily Telegraph 28 September 2005
- ^ Adam Sherwin "Personality clash drives newsman from BBC", The Times, 27 September 2005.
- ^ "Here is the news ... I cannot work with that woman, so I quit." Fiona MacGregor, The Scotsman, 27 September 2005.