Alastair Burnet

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Sir Alastair Burnet (born 12 July 1928) is a British journalist and broadcaster, known for his work in news and current affairs programmes.

Early life

Burnet was born in Sheffield, and educated at The Leys School, a boys' independent school in Cambridge, and at Worcester College, Oxford.^[1]

Journalism career

Burnet was a reporter and newscaster for ITN between 1963–73^[2][3] and anchored ITN's coverage of the 1964, 1966 and 1970 General Elections and the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969.

For the BBC, he anchored the February and October 1974 General Election programmes. He worked on Panorama for the BBC in 1974. In 1973 he went freelance for a brief period and was editor of the Daily Express from 1974-76, resigning from the Economist, the news magazine he had edited simultaneously with his broadcasting career from 1965.^[4]

After leaving the Express, from which he refused to take a pay-off, Burnet returned to ITN in 1976, where he remained until 1991. One of the main newscasters for News at Ten between 1967–73, the main single newscaster for the newly-launched News at 5.45 from 1976–80, returning to News at Ten as one of its main presenters until his final broadcast on 29 August 1991. For ITN, Burnet anchored the 1979, 1983 and 1987 General Election programmes, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and presented several documentaries about the couple, In Person: The Prince and Princess of Wales (1986) and In Private - In Public: The Prince and Princess of Wales (1986).^{[citation needed]}

Popular culture

The satirical TV puppet show, Spitting Image, portrayed Burnet as a cringing, fawning royalist ("lick, lick, smarm, smarm"), forever trying to suck up to the nearest available member of the Royal Family. The satirical magazine Private Eye referred to him as "Arslicker Burnet".

Honours

Alastair Burnet was knighted in 1984.^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• ITV launches court bid over news BBC News, 27 July 2000
• "My mentor: Newsreader Alastair Stewart on the anchor that steadied his career", The Guardian, 2 February 2008