Naga Munchetty

Subha Nagalakshmi Munchetty-Chendriah[1] (born 25 February 1975), better known as Naga Munchetty, is an English television presenter and journalist. She regularly presents BBC Breakfast, Newsnight and Victoria Derbyshire. She is also a former presenter of BBC World News and BBC Two's weekday financial affairs programme Working Lunch. In January 2017, she temporarily left Breakfast to provide maternity cover for Newsnight as their acting business editor.

Naga Munchetty
Munchetty in the pro-am round of the 2013 Women's British Open golf championships
Born
Subha Nagalakshmi Munchetty-Chendriah

(1975-02-25) 25 February 1975
Streatham, London, England
EducationGraveney School
Alma materUniversity of Leeds
OccupationTelevision presenter, journalist
Notable credit(s)
BBC Breakfast
BBC World News
BBC News
Newsnight

Early life and career

Munchetty was born on 25 February 1975 in Streatham, South London. Her mother is Indian and her father is Mauritian.[2] She was educated at Graveney School in Tooting and at the University of Leeds, where she read English.[3] Her first job was as a journalist on the City Pages of the London Evening Standard.[4] She also worked on the Business Section of The Observer.[4]

Career

Munchetty's television career began as a reporter for Reuters Financial Television, after which she worked as a senior producer for CNBC Europe, a business producer and reporter for Channel 4 News and a presenter on Bloomberg Television.[4]

Munchetty joined Working Lunch after the show was revamped in October 2008 and stayed with the programme until it was cancelled in July 2010.[5] Munchetty has hosted Radio 4's Money Box.[6] She also reports from the City for BBC News, gauging the reaction to breaking financial stories such as the Budget,[7] and the Pre-Budget Report.[8]

Since August 2010, Munchetty has presented early morning bulletins (UKT) on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News. She is a regular presenter on BBC One's Breakfast.[9]

Munchetty co-hosted The Spending Review – The South Today Debate on BBC One with Sally Taylor in September 2010.[10]

Munchetty also presented Paranormal Investigation: Live on Living on 30–31 October 2010 to celebrate Hallowe'en.[11] Munchetty narrated the BBC documentary Fear and Faith in Paris looking at anti-Semitic attacks in Paris and their impact on the Jewish community of France. She won Celebrity Mastermind, which was broadcast on 2 January 2013. In June 2016, she replaced Sian Williams as presenter of Sunday Morning Live on BBC One. In 2017, she was replaced by Emma Barnett and Sean Fletcher. On 26 August 2016, Munchetty presented an episode of Newsnight on BBC Two.

She was a contestant on the fourteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing, having been paired with Pasha Kovalev,[12] and being voted out in week four (Sunday 16 October 2016). She co-presented Britain's Classroom Heroes with Sean Fletcher in October 2017.

In 2017, Munchetty joined the cast of CBBC sketch show Class Dismissed playing a fictionalised version of herself as a Media Studies teacher who acts like a newsreader.

Trump comments

In September 2019, Munchetty was ruled to have breached the BBC's guidelines by criticising US President Donald Trump for perceived racism. That July, while presenting BBC Breakfast with Dan Walker, Munchetty had taken issue with Trump's comments telling his opponents to "go back" to the "places from which they came". Munchetty said: "Every time I have been told, as a woman of colour, to go back to where I came from, that was embedded in racism. Now I'm not accusing anyone of anything here, but you know what certain phrases mean."[13]

The BBC was criticised for its decision to uphold complaints over Munchetty's comments. Several public figures, including Lenny Henry and Adrian Lester, signed an open letter asking the corporation to revisit its ruling against her.[14]

On 30 September it was reported in The Guardian that the complaint was also made against her co-host Dan Walker but his comments were not the focus of the BBC's executive complaints unit (ECU) investigation.[15] Later that day the Director-General of the BBC Tony Hall overturned the decision after looking into it personally.[16]

Personal life

Naga is married to ITV broadcast consultant James Haggar.[17] She had a long term relationship with former Norwegian footballer Jonny Hansen, but the pair went their separate ways to pursue their own respective careers.

Munchetty plays jazz trumpet and classical piano.[4] She also makes cocktails, a skill she learned while working in bars and pubs during her student days.[4] She plays golf, with a handicap of nine in 2015.[18] In October 2012, she won the Hertfordshire de Paula Cup at Bishop's Stortford Golf Club.[19]

References
  1. Moorhead, Joanna (17 June 2016). "Naga Munchetty: When I said I was studying English, my mum said, 'What are you going to do – become a poet?'". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  2. "BBC rules against Indian-origin news presenter's anti-Trump comment". India Today. 27 September 2019. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  3. BBC Breakfast News profile
  4. Naga Munchetty BBC News, 3 October 2008
  5. BBC's Working Lunch show to end BBC News, 23 April 2010
  6. Money Box BBC Radio 4, 24 July 2010
  7. The Full Story: Budget 2010 BBC News, 24 March 2010
  8. The Full Story: Pre-Budget report BBC News, 9 December 2009
  9. "Breakfast". BBC. Retrieved 22 July 2013.
  10. The Spending Review – The South Today Debate BBC One, 9 September 2010
  11. The Host – Naga Munchetty Paranormal Investigation: Live, Living TV
  12. Naga Munchetty becomes latest Strictly Come Dancing contestant BBC News, 18 August 2016
  13. "Naga Munchetty Trump comments 'breached BBC rules'". 25 September 2019. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  14. Hirsch, Afua; Henry, Lenny; Lester, Adrian; Guru-Murthy, Krishnan; others (27 September 2019). "You can't be 'impartial' about racism – an open letter to the BBC on the Naga Munchetty ruling | Afua Hirsch, Lenny Henry, Adrian Lester, Krishnan Guru-Murthy and others". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  15. Editor, Jim Waterson Media (30 September 2019). "BBC racism row: Naga Munchetty complaint was also about co-host Dan Walker". The Guardian.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  16. Kuenssberg, Laura (30 September 2019). "Tony Hall has overturned the decision about Naga Munchetty - he's looked personally at the decision and says her words did not merit a complaint being upheld against her". Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  17. Lindsay, Jessica (25 April 2018). "How old is Naga Munchetty and who is her husband James Haggar?". Metro. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  18. Hodge, Ed (18 July 2015). "Naga Munchetty on how golf has changed her life". The Scotsman.
  19. "Hertfordshire de Paula Cup hosted by Bishop's Stortford Golf Club. Friday 5 – Sunday 7 October 2012". Bishop's Stortford Golf Club. Archived from the original on 4 March 2015. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
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