Robert Peston



Profile:
Full name: Robert James Kenneth Peston

Area of interest: Business and Politics

Journals/Organisation: BBC | UK broadcast

Email:

Personal website:

Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/robertpeston

Blog: Peston's Picks

Representation: Curtis Brown

Networks:http://twitter.com/#!/peston



Biography:
About:

Education:
 * Highgate Wood, North London; Balliol College, University of Oxford; Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Career: Began career at Williams de Broe, stockbroker; Journalism: Investors Chronicle, 1983; joined The Independent at its launch in 1986; Sunday Correspondent: Deputy City Editor, 1989/1990; The Independent On Sunday: City Editor, 1990; Financial Times, 1991/2000: Political Editor, Banking Editor - and head (and founder) of Investigations Unit - Financial Editor (responsible for all business and financial coverage), Assistant Editor; contributing editor to The Spectator magazine, 2001; weekly columnist for The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and New Statesman, monthly commentator for Management Today, and editorial director of Quest (online investment service), 2000/2002; City Editor and Assistant Editor at The Sunday Telegraph (responsible for business & money sections), April 2002/October 2005, & Associate Editor, 2005/2006... Current position/role: BBC's News Business Editor (since February 2006)


 * also writes/written for:

Other roles/Main role:

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight:
 * Global Investor: Robert Peston's investing rules
 * My book shows what Brown really wants, The Daily Telegraph, January 2005

Broadcast media:

Video: BBC: Radio 4's Today Programme, BBC1's Ten O'Clock News

Controversy/Criticism:
 * BBC in a spin over Robert Peston's inside track to News International, The Independent, 13th July 2011
 * Toby Young, blogging on the News of the World phone hacking allegations ré Milly Dowler: Peston: News International's press officer'' - For the past year or so, Peston’s close links to Britain’s largest newspaper group have been a frequent talking point in the media - 5th July 2011.
 * see below Credit Crunch '08
 * Does this BBC man have too much power? - Reporter blamed for helping trigger shares fall - Michael Seamark, Daily Mail, 8th October 2008
 * Peston’s Picks: Getting business right
 * Tara Conlan BBC rejects business bias claim The Guardian, August 2007
 * Robert Peston fends off homophobia claims over 'Queer Street' comments, the BBC’s business editor, has been forced to fend off accusations of homophobia after using the phrase “Queer Street” to discuss sovereign debt, The Telegraph, 14th November 2011

Awards/Honours: Wincott Young Financial Journalist of the year, 1986; Granada Television's 'What the Papers Say' award for investigative journalist, 1994; London Press Club's 'Scoop of the Year' Award, 2005; Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year Award, 2005; Royal Television Society's Specialist Journalist of the Year award, 2009 (also broke the Credit Crunch story that would grant the BBC the Scoop of the Year prize)

Scoops: Northern Rock crisis, September 2007:
 * Robert Peston: Too close to home; Rock or Crock?; Taking stock of the Rock, BBC Blog


 * Damian Whitworth: Volatile Peston shakes market confidence The Times, September 21st 2007

Other: Son of Labour peer and economist Maurice Peston | Married to writer/film-maker Sian Busby 

Books & Debate:

 * Who Runs Britain? (2008) OCLC 175283979 (related RSA lecture: Robert Peston lifts the lid on Britain's new ruling class and how they affect us - 7th Feb 2008)
 * Brown's Britain (2005) OCLC 57354741

Latest work: How do we fix this mess? OCLC 796278836 with Laurence Knight. Hodder & Stoughton, 2012. Reviewed here by Peter Preston

Speaking/Appearances:
 * Ebor Lectures: Business as Usual? The Global Economy Crisis and the Future of Capitalism, York Minster, 10th February 2010
 * Guardian Hay Festival: How to talk Pestonian: a Shakespearean masterclass - Is it Pestonian or Pestonese? A dialect or a full-blown language? One thing's for sure, it's not English as it's ever been spoken before - Stephen Moss, The Guardian, 26th May 2009 (AUDIO)

Debate: 

Journals:

 * No regular column



Articles:

 * Even cheap oil might not save the eurozone - Huge monetary stimulus and falling energy prices should be just the tonic – if Greece’s elections don’t ruin recovery - 13th January 2015
 * We’re rich, and we’re better off than the Yanks - Despite worries about debt and the economy, the median net worth of British adults is twice that of Americans - 30th December 2014
 * Cheap oil could kill, not cure, our economy - In theory, tumbling oil prices should boost global growth. But they could also put oil-producing nations out of business - 16th December 2014
 * Politicians won’t save us, so the Bank must - The trade gap is causing that burning smell from the economic engine. We mustn’t fear the rate rises that can fix it - 2nd December 2014
 * We’ll all pay the price for China’s slowdown - Beijing’s 30-year boom fuelled the world economy but its debts are catching up with it. The West should beware - 17th November 2014
 * A productivity pick-up is just round the corner - The low output of British workers is the most important issue for the economy. Fortunately things are looking up - 4th November 2014
 * Why investors’ wobbles should alarm us all - The rush to buy bonds is the first sign that although the economy has come out of recession, it may be stagnating again - 21st October 2014
 * Party leaders are economical with the truth - Labour and the Conservatives have been less than honest about the hard financial choices we face at the next election - 7th October 2014
 * Is this the costliest divorce battle in history? - Whatever Westminster offers Scotland to kiss and make up, it’s likely to make a permanent split more likely, not less - 23rd September 2014
 * historic as the end of communism'' - The credit crunch has destroyed casino capitalism. From the rubble a new model will emerge - 9th December 2008, The Times
 * Week: One day I’m on the lust list, the next I’m a whipping boy'' - 12th October 2008, The Sunday Times
 * wise, the blunt and the Glasgow kiss'' - Here is what is shockingly different about Soros: he turned up without a minder, exhibited no pomposity and spoke almost no bollockese - 7th February 2008, New Statesman



Credit Crunch '08:

 * Michael White, The Guardian: Mr Big invokes Pestonian defence'' - BBC journalist hauled before MPs to face accusations over effect of his coverage of financial crisis - 5th February 2009
 * Peter Wilby, The Guardian: talk costs livelihoods'' - Has media reporting deepened the present financial crisis? - 8th December 2008
 * the media to blame for the credit crisis?'' - Too slow, too fast, too ignorant, too influential – fingers are pointing at newspapers and TV, accusing them of shoving the world towards economic collapse. BBC executive producer Dominic Crossley-Holland examines the charges - The Independent, 17th November 2008
 * Editorial - Financial Times BBC ‘leaks’'' - 20th October 2008
 * Roy Greenslade, Evening Standard: Peston deserves credit, not blame, for his reporting of crunch'' - 15th October 2008
 * Stephen Glover, The Independent: When push comes to crunch, should one man have the power to bring down a bank? - Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor, is probably the most powerful British journalist I have known in my lifetime - 13th October 2008
 * Matthew Bell, The Independent on Sunday: finds his voice and now the City's ears are burning'' - Is the BBC business editor the star of the crash or an anti-social scaremonger? - 12th October 2008
 * Peter Hitchens, The Daily Mail: scoop Mr Peston... shame about our pensions'' - Careless talk costs livelihoods. I find myself constantly wishing that clever commentators and radio interviewers would stop spreading news of fresh disasters, and cease their aggressive, know-all probing of the Government’s attempts to halt the banking panic - 12th October 2008
 * Revealed: BBC man's intriguing web of friendships behind the scoop that shocked the banking world, The Daily Mail, 12th October 2008
 * Dan Sabbagh, The Times: Peston: the prophet who can move markets'' - on the influence of the BBC's business editor and poster boy of the financial crisis - 10th October 2008
 * Stephen Armstrong, The Guardian Shortcuts: anyone else talk recession like Robert Peston?'' - 9th October 2008
 * Michael Howard MP calls on FSA to launch inquiry into bail-out leaks - 8th October 2008
 * Charles Spencer, The Spectator: Where It’s Due'' - This is a time for making the most of small mercies. One of the greatest of these, as the financial system collapses around us, is the splendid joke that is Robert Peston of the BBC - 8th October 2008
 * Sarah Sands, The Independent: is our rock – and I knew that'' - Hails to the City's voice of reason - 28th September 2008
 * City sharks made £190m killing in minutes before BBC report on HBOS takeover, The Daily Mail, 22nd September 2008



News & updates:

 * A traumatic triple dip all of his own. In just a few months the BBC business editor, Robert Peston, has suffered the death of his wife, the theft of her rings and a crippling illness. Interview with John Arlidge in The Sunday Times, 24th March 2013
 * The Party's Over, a two-part documentary broadcast on BBC2 on Sunday 4th/11th December, will look at the last 30 years of the global economy and how the West now faces up to a new age of austerity.



References:


Links:

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peston