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Francesca Mary Unsworth (born 29 December 1957) is a British journalist and media executive. Since January 2018 she has been Director, News & Current Affairs for

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

. She was appointed in succession to James Harding. Before then she served in various senior positions in the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

, including director of the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

Group. Previously she was acting director of News at the BBC from November 2012 until August 2013 and a member of the BBC's executive board. In 2013 she was appointed deputy director of News and Current Affairs.

Early life and education

Unsworth was born on 1957 in

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

. She attended St Dominic's High School, Stoke-on-Trent, a

direct grant grammar school A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted ...

. She studied drama at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

but was unable to get into a drama school and so switched careers to publishing in London.

BBC career

Unsworth began her broadcasting career in local radio, working at

BBC Radio Leicester BBC Radio Leicester is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland. It broadcasts on frequency modulation, FM, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at ...

and

BBC Radio Bristol BBC Radio Bristol is the BBC's local radio station serving Bristol, Bath and North & North East Somerset. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at Broadcasting House in Bristol. According to RAJAR, the stati ...

, before going on to become producer of

Radio 1 Radio 1 or Radio One most commonly refers to: *BBC Radio 1, a music radio station from the BBC ** BBC Radio 1Xtra, a digital radio station broadcasting black music *CBC Radio One, a talk radio station operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporatio ...

's ''

Newsbeat ''Newsbeat'' is the BBC's radio news programme broadcast on Radio 1, 1Xtra and Asian Network. ''Newsbeat'' is produced by BBC News but differs from the BBC's other news programmes in its remit to provide news tailored for a specifically you ...

''. In 1990, she moved to Radio 4 and was based in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

as a radio producer for the network during the

Gulf crisis The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

of 1990–1991. She worked as a producer on ''

The World at One ''The World at One'', or ''WATO'' ("what-oh") for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, produced by BBC News, which is currently broadcast from 13:00 to 13:45 from Monday to Friday. The programme de ...

'' and '' PM'' while at Radio 4. She moved to the BBC's Newsgathering Department in 1993, where she had responsibility for UK domestic news, and was a producer and editor for the '' BBC One O'Clock News'' and the ''

BBC Six O'Clock News The ''BBC News at Six'' is the evening news programme bulletin from the BBC. Produced by BBC News, the programme is broadcast on the BBC News channel and on British television channel BBC One on weekdays at 6:00pm. For a long period, the ''BBC ...

''. Unsworth was appointed Head of Newsgathering in January 2005. In December 2005, Unsworth appeared on the BBC's '' Newswatch'' programme, responding to accusations of double standards in

reporting of racial crimes when white people were the victims. Complainants suggested the BBC buried stories such as the racist

murder of Kriss Donald Kriss Donald (2 July 1988 – 15 March 2004) was a 15-year-old Scottish teenager who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004 by a gang of British men of Pakistani origin, some of whom fled to Pakistan after the crime. Daanish Zahid, Imr ...

, with comparable murders involving black victims given twelve times more coverage and the opening of an arts centre in

Gateshead Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...

reported in preference to Donald's murder. Unsworth admitted the case had not been covered sufficiently and that there had been space to do so. Her department again failed to cover the case adequately the following year. In 2011, BBC News was criticised for referring to looters in the

2011 London riots The 2011 England riots, more widely known as the London riots, were a series of riots between 6 and 11 August 2011. Thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England, which saw looting, arson, as well as mass deployment of police ...

as "protesters", even two days into the violence. In response to 62 complaints about the matter, Unsworth conceded that the BBC had been wrong to do so. In November 2012, Unsworth was appointed acting director of News after

Helen Boaden Helen Boaden (born 1 March 1956) is a British former broadcasting executive who spent more than 30 years working for the BBC, including as Director of Radio between February 2013 and September 2016.Tom Harpe"BBC news head Helen Boaden moved to ...

stepped aside while

Nick Pollard George Nicholas Pollard (born 15 November 1950) is a British journalist and the former head of Sky News. Early life and education Pollard was born in Birkenhead and educated at Birkenhead School, an independent school in the town. Career in jour ...

prepared his report into the BBC's non-coverage of the

Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal It emerged in late 2012 that Jimmy Savile, an English media personality who had died the previous year, sexually abused hundreds of people throughout his life, most of them children but some as old as 75, and most of them female. He had been we ...

. She ceased working in this role in August 2013 and was appointed deputy director of News and Current Affairs. In November 2013, Unsworth was replaced as Head of Newsgathering by Jonathan Munro. In August 2014, Unsworth ordered helicopter filming of a police raid on a mansion belonging to singer

Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is an Indian-born British musican, singer, producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist who holds both British and Barbadian citizenship. He has total sales of over 21.5 million s ...

. The coverage led to Richard suing the BBC for breach of privacy. On 8 May 2018, ''The Guardian'' reported: "Sir Cliff Richard is seeking a payment of at least £560,000 from the BBC following the broadcaster's coverage of a police raid at his home in 2014". In July, Richard was awarded £210,000 in damages and the BBC agreed to pay £2 million in legal costs. Unsworth apologised to Richard and stated that "there were elements of its coverage that should have been handled differently" but criticised the ruling as an attack on liberty and press freedoms. In January 2018, she was invited to present evidence at a parliamentary select committee meeting on gender pay gap at the BBC. This was initiated by the resignation of the then China editor

Carrie Gracie Carrie Gracie (born 1962)Ben Dowel"Carrie Gracie profile: Award-winning journalist with years at World Service" theguardian.com, 12 May 2009 is a Scottish journalist and newsreader best known as having been China Editor for BBC News. She resig ...

in the same month over the same issue. Unsworth defended the pay gap between Grace and the BBC's North America editor

Jon Sopel Jonathan B. Sopel (born 22 May 1959) is a British journalist, television presenter and a former correspondent for BBC News. He was formerly the BBC's North America editor; chief political correspondent for the domestic news channel BBC News; a ...

as Sopel was "on air twice as much" and that "The China job sa more features-based agenda". Gracie also reported that Unsworth had privately commented to a colleague that the pay gap was due to her being part-time. Unsworth denied this stating "I did the contract, I knew she wasn't" but apologised to her for causing a 'misunderstanding' due to 'loose' language. BBC and Gracie agreed to an equal pay deal in June 2018 and she donated the back pay awarded to charity. In September 2021, it was announced that Unsworth will leave the BBC in 2022 after 40 years.

Other roles

Unsworth was president of the

Society of Editors The Society of Editors is an industry body for around 400 UK national and regional media editors, representatives and organisations. The society has an elected president, chair and board of directors. The society was formed by a merger of the Guil ...

between 2011 and 2012, and is a board member of the organisation. She is also a board member of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

Erasmus Mundus The European Union's Erasmus Mundus programme (named after Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar) aims to enhance quality in higher education through scholarships and academic co-operation between the EU and the rest of the world. The three main objecti ...

programme.

References

External links

*
Unsworth's BBC blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unsworth, Fran 1957 births Alumni of the University of Manchester BBC executives BBC News people BBC Radio 4 British radio executives Living people People from Newcastle-under-Lyme