Emily Maitlis is a British news broadcaster who has been admired for the past 20 years. She was also the famous Prince Andrew.Newsnightinterviewer, is to deliver this year’s prestigious James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
Former Newsnight host Maitlis’ address, which will focus on the role TV has to play in speaking truth to power, will be her first since leaving the BBC as she prepares to front a Global podcast with former BBC North America Correspondent Jon Sopel.
Maitlis has won multiple awards and is one the most well-known British TV news faces. Maitlis worked for several networks, but mainly the BBC. Maitlis hosts popular podcasts and interviews presidents, prime minsters, Hollywood A-listers, and business leaders.
Her thorough interviewing style is well-known and she has a deep understanding of many issues. Her best moment was during the 2019 Prince Andrew interview about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. NewsnightThis caused disgrace to the Prince.
Two projects about the interview are currently in development, one by Maitlis herselfA very English ScandalBlueprint Pictures is the producer, while the other adapts a chapter from former into a feature film Newsnightproducer Sam McAlister’s Scoop,Deadline published the following information last month
Maitlis described MacTaggart’s news as an “honor beyond belief,”You can find more information at “massive privilege but also a responsibility.”
In a teaser of what’s to come, she added: “The need to hold power to account without fear or favour is more urgent than ever before. We are good at documenting censorship and intimidation of journalists around the world but we are sometimes too slow to recognise how and when it is happening in more subtle ways, closer to home. In many places the political actors, their style of communication and their relationship with the truth has changed.”
Fatima Salaria, Edinburgh’s Executive Chair and MD ofThe ApprenticeNaked producer said: “Emily Maitlis has delivered the news into our living rooms for over 20 years but could never be described as a news reader. Sharper and edgier than was comfortable for her last employer, she is happiest when cracking open a story and not just reporting it.”
Maitlis’ speech, the first in-person for three years, looks set to take a similar tone to former Channel 4 News boss Dorothy Byrne’s 2019 address, which called out mainstream politicians for lying and refusing to be held to account.
She follows in the footsteps of a number of recent MacTaggart lecturers who have cleared a path for change, including last year’s Jack Thorne, who lambasted the industry for “totally and utterly failing disabled people,”David Olusoga was the one who decried a “lost generation”Michaela Coel, a journalist who pointed out the ways in which television treats ethnic minorities, and of ethnic talent. “misfits.”
The Alternative MacTaggart will be delivered by Rose Ayling-Ellis, the deaf actor and winner of last year’sStrictly Come Dancing