Samreen "Sam" Naz is a British television presenter, journalist and actress, currently working as a

news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

for Sky News in London. She has previously hosted several news programmes including ''

60 Seconds ''60 Seconds'' is a short-news programme which ran between shows on BBC Three (and before that BBC Choice). It was broadcast under the BBC News format and branding. The presenters included Tasmin Lucia-Khan, Andy May, Matt Cooke, James Dagw ...

''.

Early life and education

Naz was born and brought up in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

and is of Pakistani descent. She attended the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

before completing a postgraduate diploma in Broadcast Journalism at

Leeds Trinity University Leeds Trinity University is a public university in Horsforth, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Originally established to provide qualified teachers to Catholic schools, it gradually expanded and now offers foundation, undergraduate, and postgr ...

. In 2002, she received a bursary from the George Viner Memorial Fund, an initiative by the

National Union of Journalists The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). Structure There is ...

to broaden the diversity of journalists in the media.

Career

In 2011 she became the main presenter of

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...

's ''60 Seconds'', anchoring the bulletins from Mondays to Thursdays. She also co-hosted BBC Three's live political discussion programme ''Free Speech''. Naz joined the line-up at Sky News in 2016 and regularly presents the overnight shift on the channel from midnight til 6am. She hosted a special Media Summits event about

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAE ...

in 2017, which featured

Ed Vaizey Edward Henry Butler Vaizey, Baron Vaizey of Didcot, (born 5 June 1968) is a British politician, media columnist, political commentator and barrister who was Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries from 2010 to 2016. A memb ...

. Sam Naz has been a regular anchor of the overnight and early morning coverage on Sky News since 2016, typically being on air from midnight til 6am presenting

Sky Midnight News ''Sky Midnight News'' is a news strand that airs every day on Sky News and on Sky News HD in the UK. The first 30–35 minutes of each hour features a round-up of the news stories and a look ahead to the morning news. The back half hour is typi ...

and

Sky World News ''Sky World News'' was a weekday non-stop early morning news programme which aired during the early morning GMT on Sky News and is broadcast around the world. The programme was presented primarily by Kimberley Leonard. Broadcast At the tim ...

. As of 2021, Sam Naz has been one of most frequent presenters of this slot. Naz wrote, produced and starred in a short film called ''Liberté'', in which she played the lead role of

Noor Inayat Khan Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, GC (1 January 1914 – 13 September 1944), also known as Nora Inayat-Khan and Nora Baker, was a British resistance agent in France in World War II who served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The purpose of S ...

, a Muslim secret agent working for Britain's

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

(SOE) during the Second World War. The film premiered in Los Angeles in September 2021.

Credits

Television

Film

References

External links

Sam Naz's BBC Three blog postsMedia Summits panel discussion on Brexit hosted by Sam Naz
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naz, Sam British television newsreaders and news presenters Sky News newsreaders and journalists Alumni of the University of Leeds Alumni of Leeds Trinity University Living people Year of birth missing (living people) British people of Pakistani descent