Charlene White: ‘I thought about being the first Black female PM’

In a stellar TV news career, broadcaster Charlene White has had to put up with barbed comments about everything from the way she looks to the way she talks. Not feeling you have a “face that fits”, she tells Radhika Sanghani, is why she left the BBC – where she started out – for ITV

Charlene White at a gala event in London in July (PA)

Has it really been nine years?” Charlene White shakes her head in disbelief. By accepting the job to present ITV’s flagship News at Ten in 2014 – she didn’t really register that she would become the first Black woman to present the programme. “It’s good that I didn’t know because I was nervous enough anyway. I didn’t think I was capable of that job at that time. I grew up watching Sir Trevor [McDonald] with my parents so it was just iconic for me – it was huge.”

At school, White, now 43, wanted to be a lawyer. She and her two siblings grew up in south London, where her aspirational Jamaican immigrant parents worked five jobs between them to send their children to private school. “My dad was a postman and driving instructor and would leave for work by 5.30am and finish his working day at 10pm,” she remembers. “Mum was a social worker. They worked incredibly hard to put their kids in a different position in life to what they had at a similar age.”

A “boring” spell of work experience at Croydon Crown Court made her rethink her law ambitions and she toyed with the idea of going into politics before settling on journalism. “I knew I wanted to make a mark in the world, and that comes from being a daughter of immigrants,” she says. “I briefly thought about being the first Black female prime minister – then spent more time in parliament and thought, nah. It seemed like a harder battle to fight than doing it this way.”