Sangita Myska

Sangita Myska is an award-winning British television presenter and journalist, currently with the BBC. She is a regular news correspondent across all BBC News output, as well as presenting regular relief shifts on the rolling news channel BBC News. Myska was named one of Europe's 50 Most Influential People and was nominated for the European Journalist of the Year award in 2007. She was long-listed for the Amnesty International Journalism Awards the same year for her ground-breaking television investigation into child trafficking across E.U. borders. In 2012, Myska won the international Asian Woman of Achievement in the Media award [1]

Early career

After graduating with a degree in Law and International Politics, Myska worked for a couple of months on an industrial health and safety magazine. She said of the experience: "The Editor was bonkers and I was paid less than it cost me to get to work. That said, I learnt that persistence pays off and, essentially, that pig swill can be dangerous!"

She went on to freelance as a researcher for various national broadcasters and magazine feature writers.

BBC Radio

Sangita Myska has presented a number of documentaries on BBC Radio 4, Britain's leading all speech station [1]. This includes work on the award winning series Lives in a Landscape [2] and an exploration of the pride and prejudice associated with having an ethnic name in Britain in What's in a Name?[3]

Myska's career at BBC News began when she won a place on the BBC's Trainee (Radio) Reporter Scheme. She Served her last secondment at BBC Radio Sheffield . There she was made a BBC staff reporter and latterly a producer for the Drive Time Show with Dean 'Pips' Pepall. In 1998, she joined BBC Radio Five Live as a producer and reporter, before moving to BBC Scotland again as a correspondent, but this time working in television.

BBC Television

In 2001, Myska won the BBC's Talent competition, which led to work as a presenter on BBC1's Holiday and Summer Holiday travel shows. In 2002, she rejoined BBC News, as a national television news correspondent, working on the national news bulletins on BBC One. That year, she became the first Asian woman to front a six-part undercover investigation into car crime and consumer fraud, for BBC2 [4]. In February 2003, she was invited to anchor for BBC Three's The 7 O'Clock News from its launch, before returning to the BBC's main bulletins as a correspondent in March 2004. She was due to join Five News as part of a new team of reporters and presenters for its relaunch in January 2005, however this move never materialised and instead she chose to remain at the BBC as a News Correspondent for the national news bulletins and the BBC News Channel. In 2008 Myska led an undercover team that exposed, for the first time on BBC News a child trafficker at work in Bulgaria. This led to an invitation to work with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on anti-trafficking measures [5] [6]. It was this, combined with her in the field reporting during and after the London riots in 2011 [7] that saw her named Asian Woman of the Year in the Media 2012 [www.awaawards.com]

Myska has also worked as a current affairs presenter and reporter on The Daily Politics with Andrew Neil on BBC Two; on Real Story with Fiona Bruce for BBC One; presented Outrageous Fortunes – Guinness for BBC One and BBC Three; and BBC Two's Current Affairs series Lifting the Bonnet; BBC1 World Olympic Dreams:Mongolia Rising [www.bbc.co.uk/18075876]; BBC1 The One Show [www.BBC.co.uk/news/uk-13143206] BBC1 4x4 Current Affairs [8]

Sangita is married, and lives in London. In September 2009, it was revealed that she was mugged the previous year by Daniel Mykoo and his brother Matthew, dubbed the London 'strangler-robbers.'