BBC's Humphrys wins broadcast award
8:31am Thursday 14th March 2013 in National Entertainment News © Press Association 2013
John Humphrys has been honoured for services to broadcasting
John Humphrys has been honoured for his outstanding contribution to broadcasting, just months after one of his on-air grillings led to the departure of the BBC's director-general.
Humphrys, one of the hosts of Radio 4's Today programme as well as the questionmaster of BBC2's Mastermind, is to be given the Harvey Lee Award by the Broadcasting Press Guild.
The 69-year-old news veteran famously left George Entwistle struggling to defend his short time as DG during a live interview over his handling of the fallout from Jimmy Savile's abuse.
Entwistle's bumbling performance piled on the pressure to quit later that day after just 54 days in the top BBC post.
Humphrys has been given the award because "his tenacious interviewing of politicians and others in the news has made his name a byword for fearless inquisition".
He has been a familiar figure for more than 40 years as a BBC reporter, presenter and interviewer. A former host of BBC1's Nine O'Clock News, he joined the Today programme 26 years ago.
Previous recipients of the Harvey Lee Award - given in memory of a late member of the BPG - have included Sir David Frost, Sir Terry Wogan, Melvyn Bragg and Charles Wheeler.
Other winners of the BPG's awards - chosen by journalists who write about TV and radio - will be announced at a lunchtime ceremony today.
