One of the UK’s most established newsreaders and journalists Clive Myrie has revealed the toll of being a prominent and recognisable figure, including receiving information of a death threat against him which contained details of the bullet that would be used.
Myrie, who has been a news journalist for the BBC for three decades told the Desert Island Discs radio show that he had previously been sent faeces and cards with gorillas. And one death threat involved “talking about the kind of bullet he’d use in the gun to kill me and this kind of stuff.”
He revealed: “I was shaken for a while. I thought it’s just someone showboating, it’s just bravado.
“Then they tracked down this character and it turned out he had previous convictions for firearms offences.
“So I thought, ‘Oh, my God, what, if anything, might this person have been planning?’”
Although Myrie didn’t name the perpetrator, a right-wing extremist was later jailed for 18 months for abusing and threatening the presenter, as well as targeting F1 driver Lewis Hamilton and racing commentator Jack Nicholls.
Myrie added that the emotional impact of his work, including reporting from Ukraine, took its personal toll:
“It feels as if the pain of others, the regrets, the longing, the sadness affects me more. I haven’t got used to it, that’s the thing.”