KEY POINTS:
LONDON - With her ageless beauty and unflappable calm, Moira Stuart has delivered the news of the day for more than two decades, generating barely a murmur of controversy behind the headlines.
But the announcement that her mellifluous tones will no longer grace BBC news bulletins has plunged Britain's first black woman newsreader into an unlikely row.
The corporation was yesterday forced to play down allegations of ageism after it emerged that 55-year-old Stuart had signed off for the last time from frontline newscasting.
Sources close to the intensely-private presenter indicated that her departure from Andrew Marr's political show, Sunday AM, had proved less than mutually agreeable. One said Stuart had learned of the decision with "disappointment and an element of disbelief", adding: "but that is the BBC for you. This was not her decision. It was the BBC's."
Last year she lost her newsreading slot in a revamped BBC Breakfast.
Supporters also claimed that older men continued to dominate the news schedules well into their 60s while women over the age of 50 found themselves all too likely to disappear from the screen.
The decision to axe her raised echoes of the damaging ageism row that engulfed the departure of BBC lunchtime news stalwart Anna Ford, 62. She was replaced last year by 37-year old Sophie Raworth.
But a spokeswoman for the BBC insisted the corporation had a thriving array of "experienced" female presenters.
"Moira Stuart won't be doing Sunday AM but we won't comment on contract negotiations," she said.
Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond, who stood down from frontline reporting aged 52, said news reading continued to be one of the last bastions of sexism and ageism.
Describing her former colleague as a "real fun lady", she said: "As a newscaster the cut-off point seems to be younger for women than it does for men. But hopefully the tide is turning and for the first time in my life I seem to be in the right place at the right time. This seems to be the last cog in the wheel."
When she retired in 2006, Anna Ford said she feared being "shovelled off into News 24 to the sort of graveyard shift".
She also poured scorn on executives who overlooked older talent.
"I think when you reflect on the people who they're bringing in and they're all much younger. I think they are being brought in because they are younger. I think that's specifically one of the reasons why they're being employed," she said.
A former actress, Stuart has become something of a national treasure since hitting the screens in the 1980s. In that time, as well as picking up an OBE, an honorary degree and a clutch of awards, she has presented every major bulletin except the Ten O'Clock News.
- INDEPENDENT
