“I’m not joking,” says Esme Wren. She has just told me that she often spends her free time watching old Jeremy Paxman interviews with Tony Blair. Why? Back then, “politicians kind of enjoyed it – they felt like if they passed the Paxman test, it made them a better politician. And they answered the questions, they engaged, they felt that was their duty, to be accountable. So although we weren’t delivered senior members of the cabinet every night, we got our fair share.” The editor of Channel 4 News is remembering her time on the BBC’s Newsnight, which she first worked on in 1998 as an intern, and helmed as editor from 2018 to 2021.
Wren is sitting in the cafe-foyer of the ITN building in central London, which houses the broadcast studios of ITV1, ITV London, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Everything about her – posture, expression, hair, outfit – is exquisitely composed and radiates calm. She attributes this to her 13 years at Sky between 2005 and 2018: “When you’re in a rolling news environment, you learn not to react. My adrenaline’s gone. I’m like Andrew,” she says, wryly. Not someone to laugh at her own jokes, she is referring to the 2019 Newsnight interview between Prince Andrew and Emily Maitlis, so dramatic that two TV programmes have been made of it: Prime’s A Very Royal Scandal (in which Wren is played by Lydia Leonard) and Netflix’s Scoop (in which she is played by Romola Garai).
