Born in Sussex, Snow, 76, began his career at LBC. In 1976, he joined ITN, where he became Washington correspondent and diplomatic editor. From 1989 to 2021, he was the main presenter of Channel 4 News. In 2005, he won the Richard Dimbleby Bafta award for best factual presenter, and he has many Royal Television Society awards. In 2015, he received a Bafta fellowship, and in 2017 he gave the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh international television festival. Snowcast is his weekly podcast, and his new book is The State of Us. He is married, has three children, and lives in London.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Self-centredness.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Greed.
What was your most embarrassing moment?
Fainting as a chorister in Winchester Cathedral in the middle of a service.
Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?
The cheapest available Volvo.
What is your most treasured possession?
My late mother’s grand piano.
Describe yourself in three words:
Tall, arrogant and loving.
What makes you unhappy?
Humanity suffering.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
The birthmark on the back of my leg.
What is your most unappealing habit?
Failing to carry a handkerchief.
What scares you about getting older?
Am I enjoying it too much to find out?
Who is your celebrity crush?
Joan Bakewell.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A Tory MP!
What is the worst thing anyone’s ever said to you?
“You pinko!” by a Tory minister signing off at the end of an interview with me during the EU referendum campaign.
What do you owe your parents?
A secure beginning.
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To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
I am too ashamed to answer.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My three children and my search for truth as a journalist.
What does love feel like?
It tingles.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
When trying to evade giving an answer, I have been known to blurt out: “Subsection five, paragraph nine, clause six.”
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something significant?
Retirement – I thought it was a bad idea.
What is the closest you’ve ever come to death?
When interviewing Idi Amin of Uganda in 1975, he shouted: “We have ways of dealing with people like you.”
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
An all-embracing welfare state.
What has been your closest brush with the law?
I was once arrested in a Swiss hotel at dead of night for non-payment of a fine of 30 Swiss francs – for going through a red light a decade earlier. The police burst into my room at four in the morning, dragged me naked from my bed and carted me to a police station in a blanket, where I lingered for some seven hours in a cell.
What happens when we die?
I will let you know when I find out.
