Speakers

Stewart Purvis CBE

Broadcaster, Author & Academic

Stewart is a former Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive of ITN, the TV news provider he joined in 1972 after being appointed one of the BBC’s first three news trainees in 1969. At ITN Stewart won Royal Television Society awards for news and documentaries, two BAFTA awards as Editor of Channel Four News, and a TV Times award.

After retiring from ITN in 2003 Stewart became a Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at Oxford University and the first Professor of Television Journalism at City University London.

From 2007 to 2010 he was Ofcom’s Partner for Content and Standards. He also chaired the UK Government’s Media Literacy Working Group and was one of the founders of the online academic resource Newsfilm Online. He has also been a Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications, and Chairman of the Royal Television Society’s TV Journalism Awards. Between 2013 and March 2021 he was a non-executive director of Channel 4.

In 2000 Stewart was made a CBE for services to broadcast journalism, and in 2009 received the Royal Television Society’s Gold Medal for an outstanding contribution to television. Stewart is the co-author of When Reporters Cross the Line and Guy Burgess, the Spy Who Knew Everyone. His non-media interests include being a non-executive director at Brentford FC as well as being Chairman of Bees United, the Brentford FC Supporters Trust. Stewart is currently making a documentary about the Falklands War.