Krishnan Guru-Murthy is an English television presenter on Channel 4. He
presents the Channel 4 News and the foreign affairs documentary series
Unreported World. Early life and career
Guru-Murthy was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Blackburn,
Lancashire, which was independent at the time but is now a Free School, followed
by Hertford College at the University of Oxford, where he read Philosophy,
Politics and Economics. Guru-Murthy's career began in 1988 on
BBC2's DEF II discussion programme Open to Question and the youth current
affairs programme Reportage. While at Oxford University he presented BBC2's
Asian current affairs programmes East and Network East and took over
presenting and reporting for the BBC's children's news programme Newsround from
1991 to 1994. He then spent three years as a producer
and reporter for BBC2's Newsnight and in 1997 became one of the launch presenters
of the BBC's new rolling news channel BBC News 24, in the 12-4 pm slot. During
his ten years at the BBC he also presented the news on BBC World, took
part in various special events, such as the 1997 general election programme and
the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, and co-presented The National Lottery
Live on Saturday nights on BBC1. Broadcasting for Channel 4 and others
He joined Channel 4 News in 1998, aged 28, and is the second longest serving
presenter after Jon Snow. Between 2003 and 2009 he was also the main presenter
of Channel 4 News at Noon. He has reported and presented from around the
world covering many disasters, conflicts and political movements, such as the
Arab Spring in Egypt. He received nominations for the News Presenter of
the Year Award in the Royal Television Society Journalism Awards in 2010 and
2014. He presented The Operation: Surgery Live
for Channel 4, which featured live heart, brain and abdominal surgery.
Guru-Murthy hosted The Event – How Racist are You?, in which the former
American schoolteacher Jane Elliott performed her brown eyes, blue eyes"
experiment on a group of British adults. He has also presented some of Channel
4's most controversial programmes, including The Autopsy and The Exorcism,
and appeared in a comic documentary about the band Gorillaz, entitled
Gorillaz: Charts of Darkness. Guru-Murthy presented his own weekly
radio programme on LBC 97.3 from 2003–2005, hosted UK Leaders Live, in
which he interviewed the three main party leaders in the 2005 UK general
election, and has appeared on BBC Radio 4 as a broadcaster and commentator,
presenting the series Hindu Lives in 2005.
He has appeared as a guest on the comedy news show The News Quiz on Radio 4 and
has had cameo appearances in several productions, including regular
appearances in Bremner, Bird and Fortune. He also appeared during short
cameos in productions such as Shaun of the Dead and Dead Set. Guru-Murthy also
hosted the Channel 4 quiz show Number One and two series of Going Cold Turkey.
Going Cold Turkey featured drug addicts enduring withdrawal, live on television,
as part of their attempts to stop using drugs. He used to write a weekly column
in the Metro newspaper and the Asian newspaper Eastern Eye.
He presented The TV Show on Channel 4, a discussion programme about television.
In the month before the 2010 General Election, Guru-Murthy moderated the
first debate featuring the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his counterparts, in a
special programme called Ask the Chancellors. He also hosted How to save
£100 Billion – Live the night before the new government's Emergency Budget.
In February 2010, Guru-Murthy interviewed the former Labour MP Jim
Devine at length about his expenses in which the politician admitted 'moving
money around'. The interview became key evidence in court when Devine was
prosecuted for fraud and sentenced to sixteen months in jail.
In 2011, Channel 4 announced that Guru-Murthy would become an "ambassador"
for its foreign affairs programme Unreported World, which involved him
reporting some documentaries and introducing others from the news studio.
His first film was from South Africa called Trouble in the Townships. He has
since made Unreported World documentaries in Yemen, Iraq,
Afghanistan, India, America and Cambodia.
In January 2013, Guru-Murthy interviewed Quentin Tarantino, who was promoting his
new film, Django Unchained. When he asked Tarantino to consider whether
there is a link between film violence and real-life atrocities in America,
especially in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Tarantino
stated that his opinion on the matter was well-documented and then responded,
"I refuse your question. I'm not your slave and you're not my master. You
can't make me dance to your tune. I'm not a monkey." When Guru-Murthy tried to
steer the conversation back towards the subject later in the interview,
Tarantino continued, "It's none of your damn business what I think about that! …
And I'm shutting you down.". In April 2015, he interviewed Robert
Downey Jr., who was promoting Avengers: Age of Ultron. Half way through the
interview Guru-Murthy said "I think we have two, three more minutes.." but was
interrupted by Downey who said "Your foot's starting to jump a little bit you
better get to your next question." He asked Downey if his relationship with
his father, drug use and alcoholism had anything to do with is career. Downey
then walked out of the interview saying "it's getting a little Diane Sawyer in
here." After the interview was watched several million times on Youtube.
Guru-Murthy, in an account published in The Guardian newspaper, described how
the question areas had been discussed in advanced with Downey's PR man.
Guru-Murthy has appeared as himself in a number of movies and TV dramas including
Shaun of the Dead and Dead Set. He has also been Channel 4's commentator
on events such as the opening and closing ceremonies of the London
Paralympic Games in 2012, the Winter Paralympics in Sochi and the reburial of
Richard III in Leicester in 2015. Charity support
Guru-Murthy is Patron of the Duchenne Children's Trust and founded the
Duchenne Dash in 2013, a London to Paris cycle ride in twenty four hours. The
ride is done by various media executives and news presenters and in three years
has raised over one million pounds. Private life and family
Guru-Murthy is married with two children. His sister, Geeta Guru-Murthy,
is a news presenter and journalist with BBC World News and his brother Ravi
Guru-Murthy is a Vice-President of the International Rescue Committee.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy has played in a rock band with Peter Barron, the former
editor of Newsnight and Tim Hincks, the chief creative officer of Endemol UK.
References External links
Krishnan Guru-Murthy at the Internet Movie Database