Retiring BBC newsreader Peter Sissons has said: “It should be a requirement that you don’t get to read the news unless you’ve been through the fire of frontline reporting.”
He is quoted in the Sunday Mirror as saying: “We’ve got to make sure the new generation of news presenters have what the old generation had, which is knowing how the world worked.”
Sissons, 66, has also had a dig at Five News’ £1m a year presenter Natasha Kaplinsky saying: “Natasha has done very well out of her looks. I suppose any bright woman with good looks who can make herself £1 million a year must be doing something right from her point of view.
“I haven’t followed her career very closely. I’m one of the very many people who have never watched Five News from beginning to end.”
Sissons is to retire in the summer to focus on writing his memoirs and is thought to be Britain’s longest serving TV news presenter after a 45-year career.
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