Laura Kuenssberg Salary

BBC pays Laura Kuenssberg an annual salary of £290,000 each year which sums to a monthly salary of £24,166.66. Laura Juliet Kuenssberg is a British journalist who serves as the political editor of BBC News. She is the position’s first female occupant. She formerly worked as the BBC’s chief political correspondent and as ITV News’ first business editor

Laura Kuenssberg Net Worth

Laura Kuenssberg’s net worth is estimated to be $2 million as of 2023. This includes her property, funds, and earnings. Her job career is her main source of income. Laura Kuenssberg has amassed a large wealth from numerous sources of income, yet she likes to live a humble lifestyle.

Laura Kuenssberg Bio

Laura Juliet Kuenssberg is a British journalist who serves as the political editor of BBC News. She is the position’s first female occupant. She formerly worked as the BBC’s chief political correspondent and as ITV News’ first business editor.

Laura Kuenssberg Age

Laura was born in Italy on August 8, 1976 in Rome, Italy. As of 2023 she is 46 years old.

Laura Kuenssberg Parents

Laura was born and raised by her parents in Italy. Her father, Nick Kuenssberg, is a businessman who previously worked for the British corporation Coats Viyella. Sally Kuenssberg, her mother, worked in children’s services and was awarded a CBE in the 2000 New Year Honours. Laura’s paternal grandfather was Ekkehard von Kuenssberg, a co-founder and president of the Royal College of General Practitioners who received a CBE in 1969 Birthday Honours. Lord Robertson, a Scots High Court judge, was her maternal grandfather.

Laura Kuenssberg Siblings

Laura was raised with her elder brother David Kuenssberg, executive director of finance and resources at Brighton and Hove City Council, and her elder sister Joanna Kuenssberg, a former diplomat and high commissioner to Mozambique.

Laura Kuenssberg Husband

Laura is married to James Kelly, a management professional who also attended Edinburgh University. He came to the United States after finishing his degree to study at Harvard University.

Laura Kuenssberg Education Background

Kuenssberg attended Laurel Bank School, a prestigious girls’ school, before going on to study history at the University of Edinburgh and journalism at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Laura Kuenssberg BBC news

Laura began her career with the BBC in March 2000 as a trainee journalist for BBC North and Cumbria. She received a regional Royal Television Society award for her work as a home affairs correspondent and created programs for Niall Dickson, the social affairs editor.

She was named BBC News’ main political correspondent. Kuenssberg contributed to BBC One news broadcasts, Daily Politics, and the BBC News channel. In May 2010, her presence on BBC Television was so pervasive that journalist David Aaronovitch created the term “Kuenssbergovision” to describe the period between the 2010 United Kingdom general election and the establishment of the Cameron–Clegg coalition.

Kuenssberg left BBC News in September 2011 to take up the newly formed position of business editor for ITV News and was replaced at BBC News by Norman Smith from BBC Radio 4. She also helped with business reporting on ITV’s current affairs show, Tonight. She made her debut co-hosting News at Ten with Alastair Stewart on August 27, 2013.

Laura returned to the BBC in November 2013 as a head correspondent and Newsnight presenter, succeeding Gavin Esler.

In February 2014, she joined the Newsnight crew.

Laura was named the BBC’s political editor in July 2015, making her the first woman in the post. Kuenssberg was responsible for arranging for Labour MP Stephen Doughty to officially announce his retirement as a shadow foreign office minister on Daily Politics in January 2016.

Kuenssberg hosted The Brexit Storm: Laura Kuenssberg’s Inside Story for BBC Two in March 2019. Her role in reporting on Brexit negotiations was the focus of a March 30th, 2019 piece in The Times Magazine. On December 17, 2019, she broadcast The Brexit Storm Continues: Laura Kuenssberg’s Inside Story, a second documentary film that followed Boris Johnson’s appointment at 10 Downing Street through the 2019 general election. Kuenssberg also co-hosted the BBC’s Brexitcast podcast, which was later renamed the Newscast podcast, with Katya Adler, Adam Fleming, and Chris Mason.

Allegations of Bias Against Laura Kuenssberg

Following the 2016 local elections, a petition on 38 Degrees was launched accusing Kuenssberg of prejudice towards the Labour Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and calling for her expulsion. David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, later withdrew the petition.

The BBC Trust concluded in January 2017 that a report by Kuenssberg in November 2015 violated the broadcaster’s impartiality and accuracy criteria. A viewer had complained about her piece, which featured an interview with Corbyn on BBC News at Six, which gave the mistaken impression that Corbyn opposed the use of weapons by police in circumstances such as the terrorist atrocities in Paris that month. Despite this, the BBC Trust found no evidence of any intent to deceive, and their decision was that the footage “had been compiled in good faith.”

The Daily Telegraph ran a front-page piece about Kunnensburg in 2017 with the heading “the most polarizing lady on TV today?” Kuenssberg was chastised in September 2019 for portraying Omar Salem, a father who approached Prime Minister Boris Johnson about the government’s treatment of the NHS, as a “Labour activist.” Salem supported Kuenssberg, saying she was performing her duties “without fear or favor.”

During the 2019 UK general election, Kuenssberg was accused of bias in a number of campaign incidents, as well as criticism of the BBC’s election coverage. On the 11th of December, the day before the election, she sparked outrage by declaring on the air that submitted postal votes were “looking really dark for Labour in a number of regions of the country,” which was supposedly viewed by both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. Viewing postal ballots prior to election day violates Electoral Commission norms, and projecting electoral outcomes based on votes cast prior to polls closing may be a criminal offense. The film was later taken from BBC iPlayer, and the edition of Politics Live in which the event occurred was also removed from the BBC Parliament schedule.

Kuenssberg, along with other big journalists, was chastised for wrongly tweeting, without verification, that a Labour activist had punched a Conservative Party advisor; the footage was eventually revealed proving this was false, and she later apologized and removed her post.

Over 100 complaints were filed against Kuenssberg after an interview with Boris Johnson in July 2020, saying that she had unduly interrupted Johnson and was biased towards the government. The BBC defended Kuenssberg, saying she conducted the interview in a “thorough, rigorous, but fair” manner.

Economists chastised Kuenssberg in November 2020 for her economic illiteracy after she defended the Tory government’s projected austerity by asserting the UK has “no money left” and drew a faulty comparison between a national economy and a home.

Bodyguard for Laura Kuenssberg

In a July 2017 Spectator story, Charles Moore stated that he was told “informally” that Kuenssberg had received bodyguard security during the 2017 general election. The BBC feared her safety was jeopardized due to online harassment attributed primarily to Corbyn supporters. The BBC declined to comment on the story. Yvette Cooper, a Labour lawmaker, backed the BBC’s political editor, saying, “It’s her responsibility to raise challenging questions.” It is her responsibility to be skeptical of everything we say.” Kuenssberg was also abused by some Conservative and UKIP supporters by the end of the campaign.

Kuenssberg was accompanied by a security guard to both the Conservative and Labour Party conferences in 2017. The New York Times quoted journalist Jenni Russell, a former BBC editor herself, about the issue involving Kuenssberg, saying, “The graphic level of threats to women is quite extraordinary, and it’s one of the worst things to have happened in recent British public life.”

Laura Kuenssberg Honors

Laura has received multiple awards, including Broadcaster of the Year by the Political Studies Association in November 2016 for her contribution to public understanding of politics, particularly in relation to the EU Referendum in June 2016 and subsequent developments.

Kuenssberg received the Journalist of the Year award at the British Journalism Awards, which were organized by Press Gazette in December 2016, for the sheer volume and scope of her reporting on some of the most significant changes in British politics, particularly her coverage of the EU membership referendum and its aftermath.

She was named one of the top 20’most influential Londoners in the Evening Standard’s 2019 list.