Edward Stourton (journalist)

Stourton was born in the then British colony of Nigeria as his father was based there. He was educated at the now defunct Roman Catholic preparatory school Avisford in Walberton and at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire and was head boy in his final year at both establishments.

While at Ampleforth he befriended future High Court judge Nicholas Mostyn, who was also the son of a Nigerian-based BAT executive. The duo won the national ESU Schools Mace debating prize in 1975.[3] He read English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, gaining a 2:1. He served as president of the Cambridge Union Society and editor of the student magazine Rampage.

He joined the staff of ITN in 1979 as a graduate trainee. While working there he was a founder member of Channel 4 News in 1982 working predominantly as a copywriter but also as a producer, duty home news editor and chief sub-editor. Stourton joined the BBC in 1988 as a Paris correspondent. He returned to ITN as a diplomatic editor in 1990. In 1993, he was back at the BBC as the presenter of BBC One O'Clock News for six years. He presented editions of Assignment, Correspondent, Panorama and Call Ed Stourton, a phone-in programme on Radio 4.

He has made a number of current affairs programmes for Radio 4 including Asia Gold and Global Shakeout, The Violence Files, With us or against us, United Nations – or Not?. Asia Gold was the winner of the Sony Radio Gold Award for current affairs in 1997. Stourton presented a four-part series about the Catholic church, entitled Absolute Truth. It was broadcast on BBC2 in 1997. He also wrote a book to accompany the series.

In 2001, he won the Amnesty International Award for best television documentary for an episode of Correspondent about the Khiam detention center during the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.[4] His series, A Year in the Arab Israeli Crisis, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service in 2005.

Stourton is a descendant of the 19th Baron Stourton and in very distant remainder to this barony presently held by his cousin James Stourton, 28th Baron Mowbray. He is the son of Nigel Stourton CBE, who worked for British American Tobacco, and Rosemary Abbott, being brought up near Patrick Brompton.

In Kensington in 1980, he married Margaret McEwen, the daughter of Sir James Napier Finnie McEwen, a baronet. They had three children together before divorcing.

He married former colleague Fiona Murch on 8 November 2002 at Chelsea Register Office. She was an editor for BBC Two (producing the Correspondent programme, in which Stourton featured, although he left the programme) with whom he had lived from 2001. They live in Stockwell, south London. He is a Roman Catholic and has an extensive knowledge of the Roman Catholic faith.[9]

• John Paul II: Man of History (Hodder & Stoughton) ISBN 978-0-340-90816-7 2 April 2006
• In the Footsteps of St Paul (Hodder & Stoughton) ISBN 978-0-340-86186-8 20 May 2004
• Absolute Truth: The Catholic Church Today (Viking Press) ISBN 978-0-670-87967-0 1 October 1998
• It's a PC World: What It Means to Live in a Land Gone Politically Correct (Hodder & Stoughton) ISBN 978-0-340-95486-7 13 November 2008
• Diary of a Dog-Walker: Time Spent Following a Lead (Doubleday) ISBN 978-0-85752-007-4, 9 June 2011
• Cruel Crossing: Escaping Hitler Across the Pyrenees (Doubleday) ISBN 978-0-85752-051-7, 25 April 2013
• Auntie's War: The BBC During the Second World War (Doubleday) ISBN 978-0-857-52332-7, 2 November 2017
• Confessions (Doubleday) ISBN 978-0-857-52833-9, 26 January 2023

• Edward Stourton at IMDb
• United Nations – or Not?
• With us or against us
• A Year in the Arab Israeli Crisis
• Keeping the Faith, BBC Radio 4 series in which people of different religions look at the English Reformation through the experience of their ancestors.