Two years ago, Snow left Channel 4 News, after anchoring the show for more than three decades. Now he has written a memoir. He discusses boarding school misery, family connections and why Boris Johnson is a chancer
I meet Jon Snow in Penguin’s new offices in south London, where everything is hushed and plush, uncorrected proof copies of Snow’s memoir-cum-polemic, The State of Us, piled neatly next to finished copies of Prince Harry’s Spare. Snow announced his retirement, after 32 years anchoring Channel 4 News, almost two years ago, and now he can finally tell us what he really thinks about everything.
Broadcasters are supposed to be impartial – a standard that not just Ofcom but millions of keyboard warriors everywhere insist on – and Snow has been a broadcaster most of his working life. Before he joined Channel 4, he was Washington correspondent for ITN, and before that, a roving international reporter. He joined LBC in 1973, one of its first hires, meaning that for 50 of his 75 years, he has been under contractual obligation to keep his opinions to himself.
