Victoria Derbyshire: “One day your face fits, next day it doesn’t”

The TV host talks TikTok, treatment and tone of voice with Alex Berry

No amount of experience on news television and radio can guarantee you a job, as Victoria Derbyshire knows all too well. It’s a chilly December night, in the Lexington bar in Angel, packed with the usual post-work crowd and festive parties. A DJ is attempting to please a struggling crowd with soulless dance music, while Derbyshire savours a well-earned drink after a memorable year. She fits between the dance foor – for The Human League’s seminal “Don’t You Want Me” – before returning to the bar to set a date to tell us more about her year, perhaps when she’s feeling a little less merry.

After all, it’s been a year for Derbyshire. When her television programme, Victoria

Derbyshire, was cancelled in 2020 she could easily have felt thrown into a state of uncertainty and panic. However, the pragmatic and resourceful journalist in her took this closed door, and from its abruptly shut hinges, swung open a new one by starting a TikTok channel.

Not everybody could make a move like this – but then, not everybody is Victoria Derbyshire. Even in the dark crowded Lexington, her face is instantly recognisable. For over 25 years, she has been in homes, cars, workplaces, and phone screens, delivering primetime news in both television and radio. Her voice – both deep and clear – has been a regular presence in BBC radio, having presented Radio5Live for 16 years between 1998 and 2014.

Weeks later, we’re at the Caffè Nero right by the BBC Broadcasting House –convenient for squeezing in a mid-afternoon interview. Sporting a fabulous pink coat and a camera-ready blow-dry, she greets us with an enormous smile and a frm handshake.

She begins right where she left off – her TikTok channel.

The channel – which has now amassed almost 450, 000 followers – follows her coverage of major news stories, but in a way we have never seen her before. Casual yet effective, unedited yet brief, Derbyshire aims to inform and involve the younger generation of the news by appearing on the largest-growing social media platform in the world, playing her role in the rapidly evolving news landscape: “I felt like I was providing a really useful service by starting it: being lowkey, factually accurate, calm, and not using sensational images, but much more informal obviously.” Since starting the channel, Derbyshire has covered stories on the riots in government buildings in Brasília, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, and the investigation into illegal parties at Downing Street during lockdown.

Now, some are wondering how much infuence the BBC holds over its journalists’ social media platforms. The conversation comes after a controversial tweet by Gary Lineker caused his temporary dismissal as Match of the Day host after a 24-year stint. The tweet compared language used in a Home Offce video about immigration to that of Nazi Germany.

About her TikTok channel, Derbyshire says, “They haven’t said they’ve got a problem with it.” But could the same be said if she chose to use the platform to express personal views? After all, Lineker did not necessarily predict the backlash he received, from an organisation with whom he had worked for over 20 years.

Although she uses mainly BBC sources to gather information, the channel is listed under her name and doesn’t hold any association with the broadcasting company, separating the two strands of her work. She emphasises the freedom and ease of being able to flm these shorts “in [her] living room or back bedroom,” and among her news videos, you will fnd several candid clips of her husband, children, and two cocker spaniels. It’s a small window into her private life, her own personal platform where, incidentally, she also utilises her skills as a reporter.

Derbyshire offers short snippets of the BBC was not compromised and the snap decision did not tarnish her name. news on her TikTok which she coins ‘mini explainers’. She is looking to inform people, notably the younger generations: “Particularly in the run-up to the war in Ukraine, there was massive demand from young people who were anxious, scared, worried, thinking it was going to be WWIII, worried that their older brother might be called up. They had no idea because they’ve never experienced a war before.”

As an admired journalist who has become a household name, Derbyshire knows the perils of the TV journalism industry. On her show’s cancellation she says, “One day your face fts, the next day it doesn’t.” She counts herself lucky that among the various anxieties that came with the shock, she still had a job at the end of it. Her position within

Of course, this was not the frst time the BBC have undercut a key player, with Chris Moyles being blindsided by Radio 1 in his alleged 2012 sacking without notice, and Ken Bruce’s recent, dramatic dismissal from Radio 2 after over 30 years. She says, “I know what this industry’s like. It’s fckle, it’s changing, I’m not knocking that I’m trying to go with it – that’s why I do TikTok.”

Her reach is broadening daily. With her new online presence, she is adapting to the changing news environment and rewriting what it means to be a traditional news reader. And it’s not the frst time Derbyshire has felt personal responsibility to provide valuable news that may be missing elsewhere. Her video documentation of her breast cancer treatment and mastectomy in 2016 saw her journalism skills applied to a personal ordeal. Reaching thousands, Derbyshire recorded everything from her frst treatmentinduced hair loss to an intimate post-op video blog from her hospital bed. On the responsibility she feels to candidly provide this information, Derbyshire confrms that this documentation came entirely from a journalistic instinct, acting as a helping hand for many people going through a similar struggle. “It was totally about journalism,” she says. “It was the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t necessarily know what the treatment would involve, that means other people might not know, so I thought, ‘Let’s record this as we go along.’”

She refects on her diagnosis: “There’s a few weeks when you don’t know whether it’s treatable which is f*****g awful. And then they say they can treat it so you think, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna live!’ and then I thought, ‘Right, let’s do some journalism on this.’” Part of that involved diary writing as well which she says was healing. “I get catharsis from that process. Maybe it’s an extension of that.”

Derbyshire is mindful in everything she says. She holds the importance and potential impact of her career highly when she speaks, constantly aware of the responsibility journalists carry to deliver the most important stories accurately. “We do stories about people’s lives and sometimes that can be uplifting and amazing, and sometimes it can be utterly traumatising. I’m drawn to stories that appear on the face of it, that some sort of miscarriage of justice is going on.”

Her far-reaching infuence was witnessed during one specifc broadcast on 6th April 2020. During the national lockdown, she appeared on BBC News with the telephone number for the National Domestic Abuse Hotline written on her hand, a choice which she says was not wholly intentional, as the writing was still on there from a photo she had tweeted earlier that day.

Derbyshire acknowledges that BBC journalists need to get permission to be associated with particular charities because they cannot seem to be giving preference to one charity over another. There are some topics, however, that according to her, merit a stance. “From a personal view, I don’t think you can be impartial about domestic abuse. Obviously. There are no two sides to domestic abuse. And so if it helped anyone that day who was trapped in their home, then I’m good with that.”

In her broadcasting career, Derbyshire is well-known for her investigative skills and uncovering of miscarriages of justice. For her work in this area she has received critical acclaim, establishing herself as more than just a newsreader. Her coverage of the football sexual abuse scandal in 2017 won her the BAFTA for Television News Coverage that year. She notes that this story was the most memorable piece she has worked on so far in her career.

What makes her so good then? Perhaps it’s her direct and curious journalistic style, not dissimilar from her off-screen personality. When not responding with clear answers, she is clarifying and asking follow-up questions to ensure she has full understanding of the conversation. She’s precise in her phrasing. She often pauses for a few seconds, holding total silence while she plans her next response. Sometimes she uses phrases like, “I hope I’m communicating this properly,” or “Let me make sure I’m being absolutely clear here.”

Decades of being in the public eye and the social threats of cancel culture are bound to make her think twice about her answers. It doesn’t make her look nervous – just careful and precise. This steadfast clarity has established her as one of the UK’s leading broadcast journalists, and rightly earned her the gig of Newsnight host along with her friend and colleague Kirsty Wark.

Only the night before this interview, Derbyshire demonstrated the casual ease with which she conducts her work when she comically handled former Conservative MP Kenneth Baker’s phone ringing during his Newsnight interview. “I was just trying to do my job which is asking the questions, and deal with the phone without looking rude to the guests,” she recalls. “I’ve done hundreds of hours of TV and radio, and these things happen all the time.”

Able to ignore the subsequent headlines that graced the papers the next morning, Derbyshire says that this is one of the beauties and challenges of being on live TV: “You do not know what’s going to happen.” It’s clearly not something which she feels awkward or embarrassed about: “If you level with the audience and behave like a human being, be polite, and continue doing the job, the audience will get it.”

Derbyshire has been at the centre of national reporting, responsible for delivering signifcant news stories nationally and globally. From the 7/7 bombings and the Grenfell Tower Fire to the outbreak of Covid-19, she has often been the frst voice breaking hugely signifcant events in world news. On this immense responsibility, Derbyshire says, “You don’t always have time to process it. Sometimes it feels like, ‘I am learning something at the same time as the viewer,’ and that’s okay as long as I’m calm, authoritative, accurate, and straightforward.” Holding the news for a few moments without feeling the pressure doesn’t phase Derbyshire: “It’s my job.”

When breaking potentially emotional news, Derbyshire has always brought some humanity to her presenting: “I am a human being frst and a journalist second. You can express your humanity in the tone of your voice,” she says. “You might be reading pretty brutal words, but the tone and the manner in which you deliver it makes it possible to express the fact that you might be moved by something, without making it about you.”

Derbyshire is an example of the lengths reporters have to go to in their daily work and the respect they deserve. Their personal platforms are theirs to use and there is no risk that Derbyshire will take advantage of her position or use her infuence irresponsibly. She embodies the fairness, thoughtfulness, and maturity that we expect from our BBC reporters.

Most people have the freedom to mute the radio, turn off notifcations, close the paper, or switch the channel, but for journalists, this isn’t the case. We trust them to provide a necessary service, to deliver important stories regardless of their pain or bitterness. Ultimately, this service is the reason Derbyshire’s work prevails. “If I can do journalism that’s going to make a difference to people’s lives, that’s what I want to do,” she says. “It’s not a game.”