All posts tagged: Murray

Dame Jenni Murray remembered: her deeply personal last piece for RT calling for dignity in death

Dame Jenni Murray remembered: her deeply personal last piece for RT calling for dignity in death

Published by Daniella Wilson

Broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray, best known for hosting BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for more than three decades, has died at the age of 75. A defining voice in British broadcasting, she spent 33 years on the programme, becoming its longest-serving presenter and conducting landmark interviews with figures including Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and Margaret Atwood. Following the news of her death, BBC director general Tim Davie paid tribute to Murray as “a broadcasting icon”, while Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya described her as “warm, fearless and beloved by listeners”. Below, we revisit one of her most personal columns, first published in Radio Times magazine in February 2022, in which she reflects on death, dignity and the right to choose. I’ve been thinking a great deal about death in recent weeks and particularly asking what might be the manner of my own passing. My hope to have the right, when the time comes, to choose to die with dignity in my own home surrounded by the people who love me began some 16 years ago …

Dame Jenni Murray remembered: her deeply personal call for dignity in death

Dame Jenni Murray remembered: her deeply personal call for dignity in death

Published by Daniella Wilson

Broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray, best known for hosting BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for more than three decades, has died at the age of 75. A defining voice in British broadcasting, she spent 33 years on the programme, becoming its longest-serving presenter and conducting landmark interviews with figures including Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and Margaret Atwood. Following the news of her death, BBC director general Tim Davie paid tribute to Murray as “a broadcasting icon”, while Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya described her as “warm, fearless and beloved by listeners”. Below, we revisit one of her most personal columns, first published in Radio Times magazine in February 2022, in which she reflects on death, dignity and the right to choose. I’ve been thinking a great deal about death in recent weeks and particularly asking what might be the manner of my own passing. My hope to have the right, when the time comes, to choose to die with dignity in my own home surrounded by the people who love me began some 16 years ago …

Dame Jenni Murray, former BBC journalist and broadcaster, dies aged 75

Dame Jenni Murray, former BBC journalist and broadcaster, dies aged 75

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Dame Jenni Murray, the esteemed broadcaster who presented BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for three decades, has died aged 75, the BBC confirmed. She became the programme’s longest-serving host, having joined in 1987 and departing in 2020. Tributes remember Dame Jenni as a “broadcasting icon” who leaves “an indelible legacy on generations of listeners”. Outgoing BBC director-general Tim Davie: “This is incredibly sad news and our thoughts are with all of Dame Jenni’s family and friends. Dame Jenni was, simply put, a broadcasting icon. “Throughout her three groundbreaking decades on Woman’s Hour, Jenni created a safe space for her audience thanks to her warmth, intelligence and courage. Jenni Murray was made a dame in 2011 in recognition of her contribution to broadcasting (PA) “We shall all miss her terribly. Her legacy endures in the countless conversations she started, the many issues …

Journalist and broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray dies | UK News

Journalist and broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray dies | UK News

Published by Sam Flores

Journalist and broadcaster Dame Jenni Murray has died at the age of 75. Dame Jenni hosted the BBC’s Woman’s Hour for more than 30 years, stepping down in 2020. She received her damehood in recognition of her contribution to broadcasting in 2011, having been awarded an OBE in 1999. She announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. Dame Jenni was a “true professional and a pioneer”, talent management firm Knight Ayton said. In a statement, a spokeswoman for the firm said: “We are very sad to learn of the death of Dame Jenni Murray. “We started representing Jenni in 2020 as she was leaving Woman’s Hour after a long career at Radio 4. “True to her spirit of fun, she surprised many by taking part in ITV’s The Real Full Monty to great acclaim the same year. The announcement of her participation made front page news. Her reason for taking part was simple. To encourage more women to check for breast cancer. “Last year she returned to the BBC to present …

NFL QB Market, Impacted by a Thin Draft Class, Features Cousins and Maybe Tagovailoa and Murray, Too

NFL QB Market, Impacted by a Thin Draft Class, Features Cousins and Maybe Tagovailoa and Murray, Too

Published by Sam Flores

Kirk Cousins will be available to sign with any team in two weeks once he’s released by the Atlanta Falcons. Tua Tagovailoa could be on the move from the Miami Dolphins. Kyler Murray might not be in the Arizona Cardinals’ plans. Reliable quarterbacks have been of utmost importance for decades in the NFL, but long-term satisfaction with the position across the league is becoming increasingly elusive. Just because a team has paid top dollar for a franchise quarterback doesn’t mean that decision won’t be reconsidered the following year for cost, injuries, performance or all of the above. For the handful of clubs either at a crossroad or committed to starting over this offseason, the timing is hardly ideal. After Indiana national champion and Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, who’s widely expected to be the first-overall pick in the draft by the Las Vegas Raiders, the rookie class thins quickly. Finding a new starter on the open market is always tricky, and the bargain options are as scant as ever. Green Bay Packers backup Malik Willis …

How to hold up both democracy and the gospel? Pauli Murray is a guide for Christians

How to hold up both democracy and the gospel? Pauli Murray is a guide for Christians

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the life and witness of the Rev. Pauli Murray come powerfully to mind. “I want to see America be what she says she is in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. America, be what you proclaim yourself to be!” said Murray, in a 1976 interview with Genna Rae McNeil for the Southern Oral History Program. In this moment of unbridled abuse by federal immigration enforcement, framed by the administration without evidence as protecting the public from violent criminals, we are instead seeing federal agents spread fear across entire communities, disrupt families and impose lasting harm on children, parents and essential workers who pose no threat. The actions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, Minneapolis and elsewhere have detained parents and essential workers in the pursuit of enforcement quotas that only benefit private detention contractors, even as the administration’s public messaging asks us to disregard what we see with our own eyes: unnecessary brutality and murder on the streets of American citizens exercising …

Blank Canvas by Grace Murray review – a superb debut from a 22-year-old author | Fiction

Blank Canvas by Grace Murray review – a superb debut from a 22-year-old author | Fiction

Published by Sam Flores

Lies offend our sense of justice: generally, we want to see the liar unmasked and punished. But when the deception brings no material gain, we might also be curious about what purpose the lie serves – what particular need of their own the liar is attempting to meet. This is precisely what Grace Murray’s witty, assured debut explores: not just the consequences of a lie but the ways in which it can, paradoxically, reveal certain truths. At a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, Charlotte begins her final year by claiming that her father has just died of a heart attack. In fact, he is alive and well back in Lichfield, England. This lie is the jumping-off point for an unpacking of Charlotte’s psychology, as well as the catalyst for her relationship with fellow student Katarina, a quasi-love story that forms the book’s main narrative. Murray’s prose has an energising precision and originality, and the campus setting is a rich source of both comedy and social commentary. There’s some excellent art school satire throughout, as when Charlotte’s …

Maturing Toward God: An Update from Charles Murray

Maturing Toward God: An Update from Charles Murray

Published by Jenni Sidey

This article, by David Klinghoffer is republished from Science and Culture Today. My article from this morning uses the metaphor of growing older and maturing to explain how prominent people like political scientist Charles Murray, once secular in outlook, have rethought their attitudes about God, the origin of the universe, human consciousness and the soul, and related matters. In many cases, the rethinking was prompted by evidence from science. Now a reader points out that Murray has a New York Post op-ed, also published today, that uses the same metaphor. From, “As we grow out of intellectual adolescence, religion’s popularity soars“: Children of the Enlightenment, we have seen ourselves as more rational than earlier generations and in the process cut ourselves off from mankind’s accumulated wisdom about topics that do not lend themselves to pure reason and empiricism.  That was a mistake. Hence the adolescence analogy.  A common symptom of adolescence is deciding your parents are wrong about everything.  A common symptom of adulthood is realizing your parents are smarter than you thought.  Maybe we’re starting to grow up. …

Change: Charles Murray Finds Out That He Does Need God

Change: Charles Murray Finds Out That He Does Need God

Published by Jenni Sidey

People who have followed ferment in the book world since, say, the Eighties and the Nineties, have likely heard of political scientist Charles Murray (b. 1943). He authored the influential Losing Ground (1984) on welfare reform. Much more controversially, he co-authored with Richard Herrnstein (1930–1994) The Bell Curve (1994), which focused on the relationship between IQ and class structure. Coming Apart (2012) was less controversial but more sobering; it described the way social classes in the United States had slowly been diverging over the previous half century — with clear implications for politics. His forthcoming book, Taking Religion Seriously (December 2025) is rather more personal: “Millions are like me when it comes to religion: well-educated and successful people for whom religion has been irrelevant,” Charles Murray writes. “For them, I think I have a story worth telling.” Taking Religion Seriously is Murray’s autobiographical account of the decades-long evolution in his stance toward the idea of God in general and Christianity in particular. He argues that religion is something that can be approached as an intellectual …