Kirsty Wark says Newsnight ‘leaner and meaner’ as she receives Bafta fellowship

Bafta fellow Kirsty Wark said Newsnight is now “leaner and meaner” after being trimmed to a 30-minute show.

The Scottish journalist, who joined the BBC current affairs programme in 1993 as a presenter, left in July after more than 30 years.

She reflected on Newsnight’s importance amid a “world in turmoil” after picking up Bafta’s highest television accolade on Sunday night.

Wark had previously revealed she had found out about the fellowship on February 3 – her 70th birthday.

Speaking at the winners’ press conference, she said: “If Newsnight wasn’t there, they’d (the BBC) have to reinvent it.

“I would bet £500 right now that Newsnight is safe because we have a world in turmoil, and the news function of the BBC is terrific, but sometimes at the end of the night, all you want to do is sit down with a cup of cocoa, or a whisky, or a glass of wine and go, ‘what just happened today?’

“Newsnight’s role, I think has always been to analyse and work out what’s been happening during the day and bring it to the audience with the best guests.

“And that’s still happening, and they’ve taken the programme to 30 minutes.

“But look, it survived that. And it’s, maybe you say it’s leaner and meaner but actually you still need that programme at the end of the day to say, ‘what just happened?'”

In 2023 it was announced that Newsnight would be cut to a 30-minute programme as part of wider plans to make £500 million of savings at the BBC.

Wark, who has been honoured for her exceptional contribution to television, has interviewed a variety of prominent politicians and cultural figures throughout her career, including former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Australian author Germaine Greer, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and The Libertines’ Pete Doherty.

The journalist began her career at the corporation when she was accepted into the broadcaster’s graduate trainee scheme in the 1970s.

She started at BBC Scotland as one of two graduates on a one-year radio research assistant contract and moved to TV after a spell on Radio 4’s The World At One.

She worked as a producer on Reporting Scotland and went on to host the current affairs weekly Seven Days before she joined Newsnight as a presenter.

In 2001, she became a regular presenter of Newsnight Review and subsequently The Review Show.

The BBC axed long-running arts programme The Review Show in 2018, which had been on air in different formats for more than 20 years, and was also presented by Martha Kearney.

Wark has fronted documentaries on social media and taboos surrounding the menopause, and has also explored the stories of some of Scotland’s most influential female pioneers in BBC series The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland.

In 2014, she was nominated for one of literature’s less popular prizes – the Bad Sex In Fiction Award – for The Legacy Of Elizabeth Pringle, but lost out to The Age Of Magic by former Booker Prize winner Ben Okri.

The University of St Andrews has also awarded Wark an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt), the highest postdoctoral degree awarded in the fields of arts, humanities and social sciences.

Previous recipients of the Bafta fellowship include Baroness Floella Benjamin, actress Meera Syal and comedians Sir Billy Connolly and Dawn French.