Evan Davis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Evan Davis
|
|
|---|---|
.jpg)
Davis in 2013.
|
|
| Born |
Evan Harold Davis
8 April 1962 Malvern, Worcestershire, England
|
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Journalist and TV presenter |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Employer | BBC |
|
Notable credit(s)
|
|
| Title | Economics Editor of BBC News (2001–2008) |
| Spouse(s) |
Guillaume Baltz
(m. 2022) |
Evan Harold Davis (born on 8 April 1962) is a well-known English broadcaster and a former economist. He works for the BBC. Since 2005, he has presented Dragons' Den on BBC Television. He also hosts PM on BBC Radio 4 since 2018. Another show he presents is The Bottom Line, which is a discussion programme about business.
Evan Davis became the BBC's economics editor in October 2001. He left this job in April 2008 to become a presenter on Radio 4's Today programme. In September 2014, he moved from Today to be the main presenter of Newsnight for four years. On 5 November 2018, Davis started presenting Radio 4's PM programme.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Evan Davis was born in Malvern, Worcestershire. His parents, Quintin Visser Davis and Hazel Noreen Davis, were from South Africa. They moved to Malvern in January 1962 because they were against apartheid, which was a system of racial separation in South Africa. Evan has two older brothers, Beric and Roland. Two years later, his family moved to Ashtead, Surrey, where he grew up.
School and University Years
Davis went to Dorking County Grammar School. This school later became The Ashcombe School in Dorking in 1976. He was the head boy there. From 1981 to 1984, Davis studied at St John's College, Oxford. He earned a top degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. After Oxford, he went to Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University and got a Master of Public Administration degree. While at Oxford University, he was the editor of Cherwell, which is the student newspaper.
Starting His Career
Evan Davis began his career as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. For a short time, he helped officials work on the early ideas for the Community Charge, also known as the Poll Tax. In 1988, he moved to the London Business School. There, he wrote articles for their publication called Business Strategy Review. He returned to the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 1992. He wrote a paper that suggested Britain's financial success depended on being a link to the European Union.
In 1993, Davis joined the BBC as an economics correspondent. He worked as the economics editor for BBC Two's Newsnight programme from 1997 to 2001.
Working at the BBC
Reporting on Economics
As the BBC's economics editor, Evan Davis reported on and explained economic news. He appeared on many BBC radio and television programmes, especially the Ten O'Clock News. He also helped shape how the BBC covered economic topics across all its platforms, including online.
Davis also wrote a blog for the BBC website called Evanomics. In his blog, he tried to understand the real world using economic ideas. He wrote about topics like road pricing and how to choose wine.
Awards and Recognition
Evan Davis has won several awards for his broadcasting. He won the Work Foundation's Broadcast Journalist of the Year award in 1998, 2001, and 2003. He also received the Harold Wincott Business Broadcaster of the Year award in 2002. In 2008, he was recognized as one of the most influential figures in British society by the Independent on Sunday newspaper.
Presenting the Today Programme
In mid-2007, Davis was a guest presenter on the Today programme for two weeks. In April 2008, he left his role as BBC Economics Editor to become a full-time presenter on the Today programme, taking over from Carolyn Quinn. In 2009, Davis mentioned that one of the best parts of presenting on the radio is that you can look things up online while you are on air.
Hosting The Bottom Line
Besides his work on Today, Evan Davis also presents The Bottom Line. This is a weekly programme where business leaders and entrepreneurs discuss current business topics. The show first aired in 2006 and is made by BBC News and The Open University. The Bottom Line is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and also on the BBC News Channel. It is also shown internationally on the BBC World Service and BBC World News.
Davis also presents Dragons' Den on BBC Two. In 2012, he presented Built in Britain, a series about big building projects in the UK. He looked at how the M25 motorway affected his hometown of Ashtead in Surrey. In 2014, Davis presented a BBC Two series called Mind the Gap: London vs the Rest. In this show, he explored why London is so economically powerful compared to other parts of Britain.
Moving to Newsnight
On 21 July 2014, it was announced that Evan Davis would replace Jeremy Paxman as a presenter of Newsnight. His last time presenting Today was on 26 September 2014.
In 2017, the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit found that Davis had not been fully neutral during interviews about the 2017 French presidential election on Newsnight. They noted that his approach in interviews with different candidates' representatives seemed to favor one candidate over another, which went against the BBC's rules for fairness.
After four years with Newsnight, it was announced that Davis would move to present the BBC Radio 4 PM programme. His final Newsnight show was on 30 October 2018.
Presenting the PM Programme
Evan Davis began presenting Radio 4's PM programme on 5 November 2018.
Writing Books
Evan Davis' first book, Public Spending, was published in 1998. In this book, he suggested that selling public services to private companies could make them work better. His second book, Made in Britain: How the Nation Earns Its Living, was published in May 2011.
Personal Life
Evan Davis lives in London with his husband, Guillaume Baltz, who is a French landscape architect. They got married on 6 July 2022. This date was special because it was also the tenth anniversary of their civil partnership and the twentieth anniversary of when they first met.
Davis owns a whippet dog named Mr. Whippy. He also enjoys riding motorcycles. He was seen riding a Yamaha YZF-R6 motorcycle in the BBC Two show The City Uncovered with Evan Davis in 2009.
Honours and Awards
Evan Davis has received special honorary degrees from several universities. These include the Open University, City, University of London, Cardiff University, Coventry University, and Aston University.
See also
- Working Lunch, on BBC2
