Krishnan Guru-Murthy is in the ITN basement in central London – one of the two sites where Channel 4 News is produced – in front of a huge plate of biscuits that he has no problem not eating. He has gone sugar-free and lost 11kg (1st 10lb), he says with pride.
It’s a snapshot of the peculiar challenges of a TV anchor. You have to worry about whether or not the video footage pouring in from the Turkish earthquake is real while you worry about whether or not you are looking a bit jowly; you have to be trenchant but not opinionated, which is the tightrope newscasters talk about most often, but the one on which Guru-Murthy seems most relaxed; and, if you want the career he has had – a quarter of a century on the same show – you need people to like you without ever making popularity your aim.
