Reeta Chakrabarti: ‘Fact-based journalism is under threat'

Telegraph

12-05-2025

Born in Ealing, Reeta Chakrabarti was sent to India as a teenager to study – the opposite of many multicultural families growing up in the 1970s. She returned in her late teens to study at Oxford University, before working at the BBC as a news journalist and presenter. Over the last three decades she has reported on major news stories including the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the killing of Damilola Taylor, the European migrant and Rohingya crises, and the Covid pandemic. Today she is a patron of Pan Intercultural Arts, an organisation that promotes marginalised youths to unlock their creative potential, and has just published her first novel.
Best childhood memory?
My parents came to the UK in 1960 when the NHS wanted doctors from the Commonwealth. My father had qualified as a doctor in India. We lived in Yorkshire and moved to Birmingham when I was five. When I was three, my parents took me to London to see the Christmas lights. I remember the Coca-Cola sign at Piccadilly Circus and all the lights on Regent Street, it's a vivid memory in my mind. I remember being cold, but cosy, happy and mesmerised by the lights.
Best thing about a multicultural heritage?
I love having a foot in two different worlds with two different identities. I always think of myself as a great traveller. I travelled to India for the first time when I was five, we went back repeatedly when I was a child, and I lived there in my teens. But I am British. I was born here, I was brought up here, I sound British, my horizons are British. And yet I also feel very Indian, I feel both and I feel enriched by it.
Best advice you received working in news?
One of my bosses, who was very nice, quite pastoral, said, 'Reeta, when you go into the studio as a presenter, you want to be exactly the person that you are outside the studio.' And he was right. I talk to younger women, and I encourage them to be themselves, but also to be bold. I think women tend to be modest or feel they must be careful. I urge them to go for it, even if they are terrified inside. I tell them to say yes and work hard. That's the thing about journalism, you learn on the job, and you won't learn if you don't take risks.
Best thing about the UK and best thing about India?
If I were trying to step back, I would say the greatest thing about the UK is its sense of fairness, balance and justice, keeping things in proportion. Although there are times when this country has a spasm of ugliness, by and large, people are fair-minded. I value that hugely. The best bit of India? Its sheer diversity: it's not really a country, it's a continent made up of many states, all with their own languages and histories. It's hard not to sound clichéd about India, but it is an extraordinary place where the ultra-modern sits next to the ancient and they coexist.
Best moment of your career?
I'm not minimising other news, but Stephen Lawrence was my first big story, and the most formative. Stephen was murdered in 1993 and in 1997 there was a public inquiry into his death after a bungled police operation. I reported extensively on the inquest and public inquiry. It shook the nation, prompting a huge amount of soul searching for people who believed that justice is done in this country. In this case, justice was not done, the inquiry found assumptions made about Stephen, his friend and his family, because they were black.
Best thing about being a mother?
I've got three children, all grown up and I'm constantly amazed that two people can produce three such different individuals. I think that's the best thing, they share the same outlook and values, they come from the same family. But as personalities, each one is so distinctively themselves. And I love that.
Best live broadcasting moment?
I went to India and Pakistan for the 70th anniversary of independence in 2017. We broadcast from Lahore outside the main mosque and then we hot-footed it over the border by land to broadcast from Amritsar at the Golden Temple. It was such a thrill to be doing Pakistan one day and India the next. I've reported murders, wars, a pandemic, but these broadcasts were celebrations, and I remember them with fondness.
Worst childhood memory?
I have an abiding horror of boiled milk! We would go to India quite a lot when I was a kid and back then nobody believed in pasteurisation. So, we'd always boil milk, and the bits of skin would sit on top. I'd be crouched over a mug of Bournvita for two hours – it's a childhood scar that has never left me. I cannot abide boiled milk or custard with skin.
Worst mistake?
Oh, I wanted the floor to open and swallow me up when this one happened. I was in the BBC canteen and there was a very nice woman who worked there, and I asked her when her baby was due and she said: 'Oh, I had it five months ago'. I didn't go back for a long time, I was mortified.
Worst person you've interviewed?
I can name no names, but the worst person was a politician who is presently in the House of Lords, they were an absolute bore and bully. We had to move furniture around for the interview, and then obviously you replace things once you've finished. They had said 'that's fine', then came back and started shouting about why had we moved the furniture, what a disgrace and how terrible the BBC is. As soon as the camera was on, they were sweet as pie. I really went off that person.
Worst place you've visited?
I've done a lot of social stories about poverty and deprivation, when I go to places in the UK or Europe which have been left behind, where people have much less money than elsewhere. It is unjust. I feel strongly that there is no reason why in relatively prosperous countries, these things happen. It is often deprived inner-city areas or where there used to be heavy industry but there's been nothing to replace it. And young people, if they can, have left.
Worst live broadcasting moment?
It was at the end of a party conference many years ago. I was live and I could see the cameraman's eyes darting around behind me. I thought, something's going on, but I can't turn around because I'm live. Then all of a sudden, this man interposes himself between me and the camera, holding up a big sheet with something enormously libellous on it. I took him by the shoulders and shoved him to one side and put on my most school ma'am-ish voice and said, 'excuse me, I'm trying to broadcast'.
Worst fear for news?
Our very fact-based journalism, which I have done for 30 years, is under threat from opinion posing as fact. I fear misinformation, disinformation and sinister actors and people not being able to tell the difference. These things are sophisticated. I think we need to become savvier – a more news and fact-literate society. I'm not just talking about our country, I'm talking globally.
Reeta Chakrabarti will be at the Bath Literature Festival, May 17-25, celebrating the launch of her first novel, Finding Belle (Harper Fiction, £16.99), pre-order from Telegraph Books