The BBC presenter Mishal Husain has said her experience of racism in Britain over the last year has been more pronounced than at any other time in her career.
The presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme said that she had been left “shaken” at times and the summer riots had made her question her beliefs about British tolerance.
“This year I think I have felt racism in a way that I probably haven’t at any point in my career before and that’s in this country,” she said. “That has been hard, and that’s given me pause.”
The comments reported by the Sunday Telegraph were made after she accepted the British Journalism Review’s Charles Wheeler award last week. The prize is awarded for outstanding contribution to broadcast journalism and previous winners have included Jeremy Paxman, Jon Snow and Christiane Amanpour.
Husain described how she had previously said that Britain was “probably the only country in Europe” where it was possible to achieve her level of success in broadcasting with “a very obviously Muslim name”. She told the Guardian in 2018 that “with a name like mine, my career would only have been possible in Britain”.
Reflecting on this, she added: “I kind of always felt that the UK was way ahead of so many other countries on that and I don’t feel as sure of that today, especially after this summer, than I have done in the past.”
In a question and answer session at the ceremony with Channel 4’s Lindsey Hilsum, Husain said of her experience of racism that “you do need to toughen up” and “accept what goes with the territory to some extent” but said there are also times when she has felt “shaken”.
She added: “I’ve been able to pull myself back together, but I think there’s a hard climate, personally, around.”
Husain began presenting the Today programme in 2013 having worked across the globe as a presenter on BBC World News.
Husain has had to navigate complaints while reporting on the Middle East this year. The BBC defended her in the summer after she was accused by an Israeli government spokesperson live on air of warranting a “pro-Palestinian reporter of the year award”.
A BBC spokesperson said the broadcaster rejected his allegations, saying she “was asking legitimate and important questions in a professional, fair and courteous manner”.
After complaints concerning Husain’s interview with an Iranian professor who called Israel a “genocidal regime”, the BBC said it was “a live interview and he was challenged during the course of the interview, and the Israeli position was reflected”. The corporation added: “However, we accept we should have continued to challenge his language throughout the interview.”