The broadcaster has just become co-host of the popular chatshow. She discusses impartiality, her pride in ITV – and being the first black woman to read News at 10
When Charlene White was small, she dreamed of becoming a courageous, wrong-righting lawyer. That was until she did a week’s work experience at Croydon crown court. “I realised it’s not like it is on the telly. I kept nodding off.” Plan B soon presented itself: “We devoured Trevor McDonald on the news every evening at home, so I thought: actually, maybe journalism is the way I impact the world.”
White is speaking via a video call from a quiet corner of an ITV building. She has just finished recording an episode of Loose Women (referred to only as “Loose” by everyone at ITV), the daytime chatshow for which she was announced as the new main panellist a few weeks ago. Tonight, she will read the news on ITV News London’s evening bulletin. Since joining the channel from the BBC in 2008, she has become a familiar face on ITV’s national news, too, regularly anchoring the flagship Evening News programme. In 2014, she became the first black woman to host News at 10.
It may be considered an unusual move for a seasoned news journalist to join Loose Women. In its 21 years on air, the show has given Peter Andre an insight into the realities of pregnancy by dressing him in a fat suit and rigging him up to a machine to induce the feeling of labour pains; seen Robbie Williams march on set to ask why his wife, the co-presenter Ayda Field, had been faking orgasms; and enlisted Frank Lampard to marry Janet Street-Porter to … herself. But White says that many a hardbitten newshound has confided their passion for the show since she took on the mantle. Robin Elias, a former ITV News managing editor, is one of them. “He and his wife absolutely love it,” she says. “In terms of really catching the tone of the nation, he says, they pitch it really, really well.”
