Honours: Media - Parkinson knighted

Michael Parkinson, 72, who has just ended his three-decade stint as the nation's favourite avuncular chat- show host by declaring his conversational style was "finished", is honoured with a knighthood for his disarmingly incisive interrogations of guests from Muhammad Ali to Orson Welles.

Parkinson, who began his career as a local newspaper reporter and was one of the founders of the ill-fated TV-am, is elevated to "Sir Parky" for services to television during a career that included spells as a current affairs reporter and an award-winning sports writer but was defined by his eponymous chat show on the BBC and ITV networks.

He is joined on the honours list by another veteran broadcaster, Des Lynam, the dry-witted former presenter of Match of the Day, who is awarded an OBE. Lynam, 65, who gave up full-time sports broadcasting in 2004 and spent a year presenting Channel 4's Countdown, said: "This has been a splendid surprise and I feel truly privileged."

George Alagiah, 52, the BBC news presenter and an experienced foreign correspondent, receives an OBE. He has reported on the genocide in Rwanda, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and wars in Iraq, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

There is also an OBE for Glenda Bailey, a Derby-born graduate of Kingston Polytechnic who has risen through the ranks of fashion journalism to edit the American magazine Harper's Bazaar, considered second only to American Vogue as the bible of fashionistas.

Bob Hutchinson, vice-chairman of the Defence Press and Broadcasting Committee, responsible for issuing "D Notices" asking the media not to publish matters damaging to national security, is awarded an OBE. He covered the Falklands War for the Press Association.

Cahal Milmo