Edward Stourton
Edward Stourton is one of Radio 4's leading presenters of news and documentaries. Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1957, he was educated at Ampleforth College and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in English Literature before ing ITN as a graduate trainee.
He was a founder member of Channel 4 News, working as a scriptwriter but adding producer, duty home news editor and chief sub-editor to his duties. Edward reported from Beirut for the first time in 1983 and spent most of the next decade covering foreign news.
In 1986, he was appointed Channel 4's Washington Correspondent covering the final years of the Reagan presidency and the 1988 presidential campaign. He also presented special programmes on the Iran-Contra scandal.
In 1988 Edward ed the BBC as Paris Correspondent. In 1990 he returned to ITN as diplomatic editor, and during his three years in the job he reported from Baghdad during the Gulf War, from Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo, from Moscow in the final days of the Soviet Union and from Europe throughout the negotiations leading up to the Maastricht summit.
In 1993 he returned to the BBC to the One O'Clock News, which he presented for six years. He has also presented editions of Correspondent, Assignment and Panorama, and the phone-in programme Call Ed Stourton on Radio 4. His current affairs work for Radio 4 includes the series The Violence Files, Asia Gold and Global Shakeout. Asia Gold won the Sony Gold for current affairs in 1997.
In 1997 he presented Absolute Truth, a landmark, four-part series for BBC 2 on the modern Catholic Church and wrote a book to accompany the series.
In 1999 Edward ed the team on the Today programme which he presented until September 2009. He has since ed the presenting teams on The World at One and The World This Weekend and taken over presentation of Sunday, Radio 4's main religious news and current affairs programme.