Newsnight has hired Guardian chief politics correspondent Nick Watt to replace Allegra Stratton as political editor of BBC2’s flagship nightly news programme.
Watt joined the Guardian in 1998 and has previously served as European editor and then political editor of the Observer between 2007 and 2008. Before the Guardian he worked as Ireland correspondent and political correspondent at the Times.
Newsnight editor Ian Katz, himself a former senior Guardian editor, said: “Nick is one of the most trusted, authoritative and engaging journalists in the country. With a background in Northern Ireland, Europe and Westminster, he’s also uniquely equipped to guide viewers through an increasingly fractured and complex political landscape, and to lead the programme’s coverage of one of the most important and potentially tumultuous political periods in modern memory.”
Watt said: “I am thrilled to be joining the outstanding team at Newsnight at such a defining moment in UK politics. I have been a fan since Newsnight’s early days and am honoured to be working for a programme which has provided a home for some of my journalistic heroes over the last three decades.”
Stratton left Newsnight to join ITV as national editor in November. The programme is still looking for an investigations editor to replace Nick Hopkins, who returned to return the Guardian as its head of investigations earlier this year.
