Michael Kenneth Embley is an English broadcast journalist, best known as a presenter for BBC World News, international news and current affairs television channel operated by the BBC. He currently presents overnight Tuesday-Friday on BBC World News, BBC One, and the BBC News Channel.
Who is Mike Embley?
Mike has been working as a presenter, reporter, and producer with the BBC since 1983.
He trained as a newspaper journalist with the South Wales Echo and Western Mail, then moved on to BBC Wales TV News.
He began reporting on network television in 1987, with BBC’s Watchdog, then after two years joined the reporting team on Public Eye. Filming in the United States for Public Eye, Mike was the first reporter with a foreign crew to reach the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. They reported live for the BBC for the next 24 hours.
He’s worked as producer and reporter on Channel 4 News, for the BBC’s One, Six and Nine O’Clock News, as series presenter for BBC Two’s Nature, and reported two films for Panorama. This has taken him throughout the UK, Ireland, North America, Scandinavia and Asia – although as he says “somehow, I’m still a terrible flyer.”
Favourite moments include being berated by a now departed BBC manager for being “too thin for TV” – a tirade unfortunately accompanied by a long list of other lanky journalists who the manager seemed unaware were on-screen regulars.
Mike started as a live studio presenter for BBC World in 1995. After two years, he was asked to anchor the BBC’s Newsroom South East, for more than four years. He returned to BBC World and BBC News 24 in 2002, and has been regularly fronting live bulletins since.
Apart from stints interviewing for the BBC’s HARDTalk, he also goes back on the road several weeks a year, for BBC World Service radio.
Two critically acclaimed series, the Politics of Water and the Psychology of Consumerism, have taken him to Germany, Russia, India and Africa,
Mike lives with his wife Judy (a BBC producer) and two daughters in north-west London. He’s a self-confessed music anorak and keen on narrowboats, cycling, and running. Not necessarily all at once.
