Emily Maitlis breaks down in tears as she recalls reporting on Grenfell and the Manchester bombings – saying the ‘horror’ of relaying a rising death toll to viewers gets harder as she gets older
- Newsnight host, 48, was interviewed by Emma Freud for BBC podcast
- Maitlis can be heard getting emotional during interview in which she discusses difficulty of reporting on Manchester bombings, Bataclan attacks and Grenfell
- She reveals her producer called her in the middle of the night following the Bataclan attack and she had to ask ‘How many?’ referring to the rising death toll
- Earlier this week, Maitlis upset travellers on rail service from Penzance to Paddington after she let her dog sit on train seat
BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis breaks down in tears as she discusses the reality of reporting on tragedies including the Manchester bombings, the Paris terror attacks and the Grenfell fire in a new BBC interview.
The 48-year-old BBC star is heard struggling to contain her emotions as she discusses her career with presenter Emma Freud, who later said the conversation had been ‘the best 15 mins of radio I have been part of.’
Maitlis, who last week presided over the Conservative leader debate on BBC One, said that reporting on major tragedies gets harder to deal with as she gets older and she now longs for a story to be ‘less impactful’.
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The presenter, speaking to Emma Freud for a One-to-One BBC podcast, broke down remembering what it was like to report on major tragedies including the Bataclan attacks in Paris, the Manchester bombings and the Grenfell blaze, saying: ‘I hate hearing the death toll rise’
Listeners praised Maitlis for her honesty as she revealed she hates measuring the weight of a story by a rising death toll, calling it a ‘horrible metric’
During the interview, Maitlis describes the moment that she arrived back from Washington in November 2015 to get a call from her editor telling her about the Paris terror attacks.
Maitlis told Freud: ‘I’d had about three hours sleep, I didn’t know where I was – my head was a muddle. And I asked that question. I said “how many?” And I hated hearing myself do it…but it’s relevant to what we do.’
She added: ‘If two people get killed you probably don’t get sent. If 100 get killed, you have no choice’ and said she hated the fact that she had to work out the weight of a story by ‘that horrible metric’.
In the searingly honest exchange, the presenter revealed that she’s become more affected by the news she reports on as she gets older.
Close to tears, Maitlis is heard saying: ‘I hate hearing the death toll rise. The Manchester bombings; every time there was another kid, or another mum who had come to collect their kid’.
The BBC star, who held court over the Conservative leadership hopefuls in a live debate last week, upset rail commuters after she let her beloved dog Moody sit on a seat during a Penzance to London journey
Her voice cracking, she also recounted reporting on the Grenfell fire, where 72 people were killed in June 2017, saying that she’d ended one broadcast with a piece of hopeful news, that a 13-year-old girl had been found.
‘All I wanted to do that night, amidst all the kind of horror and upset was report one piece of redeemingly good news’.
Referring to whether she thought she still chased the biggest stories, she said: ‘I think the opposite’s happened, I long for stories to be less impactful.’
Listeners praised the presenter for her honesty on Twitter.
@SamanthaOdessa wrote: ‘I found this to be entirely affecting. An insightful & moving interview.’
@RachelCollier1 added ‘Moved me to tears this morning.’
Earlier this week, the BBC star found herself in hot water with rail passengers for letting her whippet Moody enjoy a sleep on a seat next to her as she travelled back to London from the West Country.
The journalist upset travellers who saw and photographed the pair arriving into London Paddington from Cornwall.
Great Western Railway, who ran the service starting in Penzance on Sunday, have said pets are allowed on their trains – but must not be on the seats.
Critics have said the train’s guard or ticket inspector should have intervened.
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