Colleagues have paid tribute to former Radio 4 Today presenter Edward Stourton who has died aged 68.
In a career spanning over forty years, Stourton was a founding member of Channel 4 News and worked at both BBC and ITN. He began his career at ITN, becoming the programme’s first Washington correspondent in 1986, and went on to spend a decade as the host of Today on Radio 4.
In 2008, he found out from a reporter that he was being sacked as Today programme host. It was widely reported at the time that he was sacked for being too “posh”.
More than 90 MPs signed an early day motion stating: “That this House deplores the sacking of Edward Stourton as a presenter of the Today programme; calls upon the Chairman of the BBC Trust, who represents the licence fee payer, to investigate how his sacking came to be notified to him by a journalist from the Independent on Sunday; notes that Mr Stourton commands huge respect for the undoubted impartiality and intellectual rigour he brings to the Today programme; further notes that Jonathan Ross has been retained by the same BBC management team that has dispensed with Mr Stourton; and calls on the BBC to reinstate Mr Stourton as a presenter on the Today programme forthwith.”
The BBC backtracked, giving Stourton “special” foreign assignments for Today and stints presenting The World at One and The World This Weekend on Radio 4.
Jonathan Munro, the deputy director of BBC news and Stourton’s producer when he was ITN diplomatic editor said “it’s far too soon to lose Ed” and described him as “unflappable then and ever after”.
These sentiments were echoed by Mohit Bakaya, the controller of BBC Radio 4, who called Stourton an “absolutely outstanding broadcaster.
“He brought intelligence, authority and an extraordinary hinterland to everything he did. When Ed was behind the mic… you felt you understood the world a little bit better.”
He was remembered as the “Rolls Royce of broadcasting” by current Today editor Rebecca Keating who also praised “his sharp mind and vast knowledge of the world brought to bear on any story with zero fuss”.
Born in Nigeria and raised in the UK, Stourton attended Trinity College Cambridge where he read English literature.
Stourton reported from Baghdad during the Gulf war, Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo and from Moscow in the last days of the Soviet Union. He was also the author of eight books, the most recent being his 2023 memoir ‘Confessions.’
It was in this memoir that he revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer almost a decade earlier. The director of health services, equity and improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, Amy Rylance, expressed her gratitude to Stourton for “speaking openly about his diagnosis in his memoir” crediting him with “raising lifesaving awareness with men across the country”.
Stourton was a Catholic and hosted the religious affairs programme ‘Sunday’ on Radio 4 and presenting the four-part BBC Two documentary series about the Catholic Church ‘Absolute Truth.’
For his significant contributions to radio, he received the Sony Radio Gold Award in 1997 and the Amnesty International Award in 2001.
Stourton’s former co-host Jim Naughtie described him as “a man of great integrity and humanity… he had the kind of infectious decency which lifted people up,” while broadcaster Evan Davis said he was “one of those people you’re really glad to have around… all substance, minimum ego, deeply knowledgeable, totally reliable.”
Stourton is survived by his wife, senior television producer Fiona Murch, and four children. In the words of Today presenter Nick Robinson, “he’ll be badly missed.”
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