Kate Silverton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kate Silverton | ||
|---|---|---|
| Birth name | Katherine Silverton | |
| Born | 4 August 1970 | |
| Birth place | England | |
| Education | University of Durham | |
| Circumstances | ||
| Occupation | Journalist, Presenter, Actress | |
| Title | Miss Katherine Silverton | |
| Ethnicity | English | |
| Notable credit(s) | BBC Breakfast BBC One O'Clock News |
|
Katherine "Kate" Silverton (born 4 August 1970 in England) is an English journalist, currently employed by the BBC.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Silverton was born in England, the daughter of English parents; 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] She was a Girl Guide and gained the Queen's Guide Award. 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.
[edit] Career
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 panellist on Five's The Wright Stuff, The Heaven and Earth Show, Big Strong Boys and Weekend Breakfast on BBC Radio 5 Live, before joining BBC News.
From 2005 until December 2007 she was the 8.30-11 am presenter on BBC News 24 along with colleague Simon McCoy although she was frequently absent as she was also a regular relief presenter for BBC Breakfast, presenting during some of 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.
Silverton 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, Silverton was named as the new Monday-Thursday presenter of the BBC News (8pm summary) - a 90-second round up of the news shown on BBC One.
She is currently taking a break from the bulletin to present the BBC News at One until the Summer, covering for Sophie Raworth while she is on maternity leave.[3]
In addition to these roles, Silverton will also do more work for Panorama as well as some foreign broadcasting for the corporation and occasional relief appearances on BBC Breakfast.
In February 2008 Silverton revealed in an interview in The Independent that she had been offered the main presenter job for the upcoming Five News relaunch in 2007. She turned it down and the job eventually went to her then BBC colleague Natasha Kaplinsky.[4]
[edit] Philip Hayton incident
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.[5] 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".[6] 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.[6] Hayton said that he left the BBC "without bitterness or rancour".[6]
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 4'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."[7] 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".[8]
[edit] Plastic surgery lawsuit
In January of 2008, Silverton sued a clinic after an allegedly botched cosmetic surgery procedure. She was having acne scars removed. [9]
[edit] References
- ^ 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 - Silverton's official website
- ^ Silverton Interview The Independent
- ^ 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.
- ^ BBC anchor sues over facial surgery for HDTV makeover
