Sam Coates is a British journalist. He has worked for Sky News since 2019 as their deputy political editor. Coates previously worked as a newspaper journalist for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' from 2000 until 2019. __TOC__

Early life and education

Coates studied English and Social & Political Sciences (SPS) at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

Career

''The Times''

Coates joined ''

'' in 2000 as a graduate trainee, working on the diary, foreign desk and as a general reporter. He won the

Laurence Stern fellowship The Stern-Bryan fellowship is an annual summer internship program for British journalists at ''The Washington Post''. The internship was established in honour of ''Post'' journalist, Laurence Stern. A fund for the program is managed by the Nationa ...

in 2005, and worked at ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' during summer 2005. Coates joined ''The Times'' lobby team in 2005 as Chief Political Correspondent, before being promoted to Deputy Political Editor in November 2010. In 2012, Coates spent a year as banking editor of ''The Times''. During his time working at ''The Times'', he contributed to the 2010 ''The Times Guide to the House of Commons'', and his picture of the 2017 Westminster attack was used on the front cover of the newspaper. His reaction to

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

ruling himself out in the

2016 Conservative Party leadership election The 2016 Conservative Party leadership election was held due to Prime Minister David Cameron's resignation as party leader. He had resigned after losing the national referendum to leave the European Union. Cameron, who supported Britain's cont ...

led to Coates featuring in the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...

'' and other outlets. Coates was said to be "pivotal to The Times' parliamentary coverage" in a 2019 report. Whilst at ''The Times'', Coates regularly presented

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's ''

Week in Westminster ''The Week in Westminster'' is a weekly political radio programme, which is broadcast on Saturdays on BBC Radio 4. It is the fifth longest-running radio broadcast on British radio, between '' Daily Service'' (2 January 1928) and '' Sunday Half ...

''. Coates also appeared as a paper reviewer on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

's ''

The Andrew Marr Show ''The Andrew Marr Show'' is a Sunday morning talk show presented by Andrew Marr. It was broadcast on BBC One from 2005 to 2021. The programme replaced the long-running '' Breakfast with Frost'' as the network's flagship Sunday talk show when D ...

'', ''

Politics Live ''Politics Live'' is a BBC News political programme which launched on 3 September 2018. It is presented by Jo Coburn and features at least four guests debating the political stories of the day, as well as reports and other content. It is broadca ...

'', and appeared on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

's ''

Lateline ''Lateline'' was an Australian television news program which ran from 1990 until 2017. The program initially aired weeknights on ABC TV. In later years it was also broadcast internationally throughout Asia and the Pacific on the Australia Plu ...

'' programme in March 2012. He also appeared on ABC's '' Insiders'' programme on 2 May 2010 alongside future Sky News colleague

Adam Boulton Thomas Adam Babington Boulton (born 15 February 1959) is a British journalist and broadcaster who is regular panelist on TalkTV. He was formerly editor-at-large of Sky News, and presenter of '' All Out Politics'' and ''Week In Review''. He is ...

Sky News

In February 2019, it was announced that Coates would be joining Sky News later that year as deputy political editor, replacing

Beth Rigby Elizabeth Frances Rigby (born 19 February 1976) is a British journalist. She has worked for Sky News since 2016 and became its political editor in 2019. She has previously worked as a newspaper journalist for the ''Financial Times'' and ''The ...

who was promoted to political editor. Coates obtained a leaked document regarding the impact of a

no-deal Brexit A no-deal Brexit (also called clean break BrexitBBC. (2019)''Brexit: Jargon-busting guide to the key terms'' (BBC) Retrieved 29 March 2019.) was the potential withdrawal of the UK from the European Union (EU) without a withdrawa ...

which featured widely in news outlets in the UK and Ireland. In the build-up to Britain's proposed exit from the European Union on the 31 October 2019, Coates participated in Sky News' ''#Brexplainer'' feature, and featured in Sky News' 2019 general election overnight coverage.

Selected bibliography

* * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coates, Sam Living people The Times journalists Sky News newsreaders and journalists English television journalists British male journalists 21st-century British journalists British newspaper journalists British political journalists Year of birth missing (living people)