BBC business editor Robert Peston pledged that he would not try to become a “smooth and polished and completely phoney” broadcaster, in a interview in The Telegraph.
The former print journalist, who broke the news of Northern Rock’s collapse on the BBC, had been criticised for his on-screen delivery and admitted he sought guidance from BBC presenter Huw Edwards after joining the corporation in February 2006.
Peston, a former political editor, banking editor and founder of an investigations unit at the Financial Times, said journalism needed to be “in your DNA”. “You have to love it,” he said, “because we don’t make all that much money.”
Peston said the 1980s were difficult for him as a journalist because of the drinking culture which dictated that industry heads had be wined at lunch and dinner in order to get stories. “After a year or two of being completely poisoned by the end of the week, I wondered if I could stick it.”
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