Bafta fellowship award is the icing on the cake for TVs Kirsty Wark on her birthday
For 30 years, she fronted the BBC’s flagship Newsnight programme.
For 30 years, she fronted the BBC’s flagship Newsnight programme.
Now Kirsty Wark has said it was ‘the icing on the cake’ to discover on her 70th birthday that she is to be honoured with a Bafta fellowship.
The Scottish TV presenter and journalist, who celebrated the milestone birthday on February 3, will receive Bafta’s highest accolade at its annual TV awards.
She said: ‘It was quite a long birthday, actually, there’s lots of things that go on (during) a birthday.
‘But to get that email was tremendous. And I think it just added, literally, the icing on the cake.
‘So we were at home, we were doing different things. We were going to, sort of, my favourite place to go in Scotland, Arran.
Former Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark is to be honoured with a Bafta fellowship
Ms Wark in 1989 with Sally Magnusson and the late Jill Dando
‘We were doing all sorts of things and then that just came in. I just thought, that’s extraordinary. I can’t believe it.’
Ms Wark, who is being honoured for her exceptional contribution to television, has interviewed a variety of prominent politicians and cultural figures including former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Australian author Germaine Greer, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and The Libertines’ Pete Doherty.
She joined the BBC current affairs programme Newsnight in 1993 as a presenter and left in July 2024 after 30 years at the helm.
She 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.
Ms Wark currently presents radio programmes The Reunion and Front Row on BBC Radio Four.
She has won several industry awards including the British Academy Scotland Awards 2013 special achievement gong for outstanding contribution to broadcasting.
Previous recipients of the Bafta fellowship include Baroness Floella Benjamin, actress Meera Syal and comedians Sir Billy Connolly and Dawn French.
The fellowship will be presented to Wark during the Bafta Television Awards on Sunday May 11 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall.