Mishal Husain (sometimes spelt
Mishal Hussein) (born 1973 in Northampton, England) is a television
news presenterA news presenter is a person who presents news during a news program in the format of a television show, on the radio or the Internet.News presenters can work in a radio studio, television studio and from remote broadcasts in the field especially weather...
for the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's international news channel, BBC World News, presenting
Impact between 1400 and 1600 GMT every Monday to Thursday as well as presenting the Sunday evening editions of the
BBC Weekend NewsBBC Weekend News is the national news programmes on BBC One at a weekend although it is often referred to on guides simply as BBC News, or if broadcast at 10pm exactly, BBC News at Ten...
on
BBC OneBBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
. She was previously a presenter on the
BBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
talk show
HARDtalk ExtraHardtalk is a flagship BBC television programme, consisting of in-depth half-hour one-on-one interviews.It is broadcast four days a week on BBC World News and the BBC News channel. Launched in 1997, much of its worldwide fame is due to its global reach via BBC World...
and on
BBC BreakfastBBC Breakfast is the morning television news programme simulcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel. It is presented live from BBC Television Centre in White City, West London, and contains a mixture of news, sport, weather, business and feature items...
. She is also a relief presenter on the
BBC News at Six and the
BBC News at Ten, and occasionally presents
NewsnightNewsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
.
Early life
Mishal Husain is of Pakistani background. Her grandfather,
Syed Shahid HamidMajor General Syed Shahid Hamid MBE HJ MC was a 2 star general in the Pakistan Army and a close associate of President Field Marshal Ayub Khan who played an important and an instrumental role in bringing Field Marshal Ayub Khan to power in the 1958 coup d'état that overthrew the government of...
, was an army officer serving in the Indian Army prior to the 1947 Partition, as a private Military Secretary of
Field MarshalField Marshal is the highest military rank of the British Army. It ranks immediately above the rank of General and is the Army equivalent of an Admiral of the Fleet and a Marshal of the Royal Air Force....
Claude AuchinleckField Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, GCB, GCIE, CSI, DSO, OBE , nicknamed "The Auk", was a British army commander during World War II. He was a career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, where he developed a love of the country and a lasting affinity for the soldiers...
. In the wake of India’s independence, led by Mohandas Gandhi, Husain’s grandfather and family “didn’t feel that he (Gandhi) represented them.” Husain herself has explained the matter in the following way:
S. Shahid Hamid wrote a book called
Disastrous Twilight about early days of independent India:
In the wake of this chaotic situation and violent clashes between different religious groups following India’s independence, the family escaped to Pakistan in 1947, on the personal airplane of Field Marshal Auchinleck, thus escaping the dangerous journey by train that most refugees had to undertake.
Husain herself was born in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. When she was two, the family moved to the
United Arab EmiratesThe United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
, where her father practised as a doctor. Husain attended the British School in
Abu DhabiAbu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...
before returning to the UK at the age of 12 to complete her education at
Cobham HallCobham Hall is a country house in Cobham, Kent, England. There has been a manor house on the site since the 12th century. The current building consists of a pair of Tudor wings built for William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham in the 16th century and a later classical central block, and a kitchen court...
, an
independent schoolAn independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...
in
Cobham, KentCobham is a village and civil parish in the Gravesham District of Kent, England. It is located south of Watling Street, the old road from Dover to London, six miles south-east of Gravesend. The hamlet of Sole Street lies within the parish, which covers an area of 1,240 ha and has a population of...
. She studied Law at
New Hall, CambridgeMurray Edwards College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was founded as "New Hall" in 1954, at a time when Cambridge had the lowest proportion of women undergraduates of any university in the United Kingdom, and when only two other colleges admitted women...
and graduated in 1995, followed by a Master's degree in
International and Comparative LawComparative law is the study of differences and similarities between the law of different countries. More specifically, it involves study of the different legal systems in existence in the world, including the common law, the civil law, socialist law, Islamic law, Hindu law, and Chinese law...
at the
European University InstituteThe European University Institute ' in Florence is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute established by European Union member states to contribute to cultural and scientific development in the social sciences, in a European perspective...
in
FlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Italy, with a thesis on the legal status of
BosnianBosnians are people who reside in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosnian can be anyone who holds citizenship of the state. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the constituent ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and...
refugees in Europe.
Having studied
RussianRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
at school, she spent six months living in
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and taught
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in
MoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
as well as taking the opportunity to travel through the country, and states of the former
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
including
UzbekistanUzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
and
GeorgiaGeorgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
.
Journalism career
Husain gained her first experience of
journalismJournalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
at the age of 18, spending three months as a city reporter in Islamabad at Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper
The NewsThe News International , published in tabloid size, is the largest English language newspaper in Pakistan. The News has an ABC certified circulation of 140,000. It is published from Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi/Islamabad...
. Then, while at university, she did several stints at the BBC as work experience.
Her first job was at
Bloomberg TelevisionBloomberg Television is a 24-hour global network broadcasting business and financial news. It is distributed globally, reaching over 200 million homes worldwide. It is owned and operated by Bloomberg L.P...
in London from 1996, where she was a
producerThe primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
and sometime presenter. Two years later she joined the BBC in 1998 as a producer in the newsroom and for the News 24 channel, and then in the Economics and Business Unit. Within a few months she moved in front of the camera and has since worked in a variety of roles: on the daily
Breakfast programme, on
Asia Business Report (based in
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
), and as a presenter of business news on both BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. From September 2002 she was the corporation's
WashingtonWashington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
correspondent, serving as the main news anchor through the buildup to the
invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
and during
the war.
She has interviewed many high-profile figures including
Paul WolfowitzPaul Dundes Wolfowitz is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University...
, Deputy US Secretary of State
Richard ArmitageRichard Lee Armitage, GCMG AC CNZM was the 13th United States Deputy Secretary of State, the second-in-command at the State Department, serving from 2001 to 2005.-Early life and military career:...
, Pentagon adviser
Richard PerleRichard Norman Perle is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government, a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970’s...
,
RwandaRwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
's President
Paul KagamePaul Kagame is the sixth and current President of the Republic of Rwanda. He rose to prominence as the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , whose victory over the incumbent government in July 1994 effectively ended the Rwandan genocide...
and
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
's
Prime MinisterThe Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
Binyamin Netanyahu.
As of 2011, Husain is hosting BBC programme
Impact which airs Monday to Friday on BBC World News, but in spring and summer 2011 was engaged on making a documentary on the
Arab springThe Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...
, for airing in the autumn of 2011. She presents the Sunday evening editions of the
BBC Weekend NewsBBC Weekend News is the national news programmes on BBC One at a weekend although it is often referred to on guides simply as BBC News, or if broadcast at 10pm exactly, BBC News at Ten...
on
BBC OneBBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
. On 8 May 2010, she published an autobiographical essay in
The IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
based on a nostalgia trip to the UAE. IHusain is also a relief presenter of the BBC News at Six and BBC News at Ten. She has occasionally presented
NewsnightNewsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
on
BBC TwoBBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
.
Other work
When the first series of
Star SpellStar Spell was a BBC game show which put celebrities against each other in spelling related games, each one was subsequently eliminated until there was one Star Spell Champion...
- a spin-off of
Hard SpellHard Spell is a United Kingdom televised spelling bee programme for children between the ages of eleven and fourteen, presented by Eamonn Holmes, with Nina Hossain reading the words. It was first broadcast on BBC One in late 2004...
that had only appeared before as a one-off episode - aired, Husain appeared as word pronouncer, replacing
Nina HossainNina Hossain is a British journalist, presenter and newscaster.Hossain is currently employed on a freelance basis by ITN where she is the main presenter of ITV London's regional news programme London Tonight. Nina also acts as a relief newscaster for ITV News.-Background:Hossain was born in...
. She continued in this role throughout the second series of
Hard Spell.
Husain appeared in a round of the BBC's
Celebrity MastermindCelebrity Mastermind is a British television quiz show broadcast by BBC television. The show is a spin-off of the long running quiz show Mastermind, with the exception that all the contestants are celebrities. As with the main show, John Humphrys is the host and question-master...
in 2010, coming third out of four. Her specialised subject was the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis. She is also one of the judges for the
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Media Awards.
Recognition
In 2009,
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
named Husain as one of the most influential Muslim women in Britain.
Personal life
Husain married Meekal Hashmi in July 2003. Hashmi, a London solicitor, heads the in-house team at
Old Mutual Asset Managers, dealing with the legal complexities of investment & hedge funds. Although Husain's and Hashmi's mothers were at college together in
LahoreLahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
and their families knew each other, it was not an
arranged marriageAn arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
. The couple have three sons, her eldest, Rafael was born in 2004, and she gave birth to twin boys on 19 June 2006. She returned from maternity leave to present the evening news on 17 December 2006.
External links