Barbara Serra: The 1st Non-Native English Speaker to Present a Primetime News Program on British TV

Barbara Serra is an award-winning journalist, TV presenter, TEDx speaker, author, and documentary-maker. She was born in Italy but has lived in the U.K. since the 90s. English has been her dominant language since learning it as a teenager in international schools across Europe.

Over 20 years ago, Barbara Serra made history as the first non-native English speaker to present a primetime news program on British TV, a remarkable achievement attained through hard work, determination, and a passion for her job.

Since then, Barbara Serra has worked for some of the most renowned international news networks, including the BBC, Al Jazeera English, and Sky News, where she is currently employed as a TV presenter and news anchor.

I invited her on my podcast, Stolaroid Stories, to discuss the challenges of presenting news with a foreign accent, her career as a non-native English journalist, diversity in journalism, the interplay between pronunciation and identity, and her course designed to help non-native speakers find their authentic English voice.

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[afsanaakther]

"Breaking barriers and redefining excellence in journalism. Congratulations, Barbara Serra!"

[turicoppola]

"If you sound different, it means you think differently."
I think it's an interesting point of view about accent.
Thank you Fabio, great episode, well done!

[nnate]

I'm a native English speaker that has found this interview after seeing Barbara on Sky News UK.
She is amazing. Thanks Fabio for this interview.

[Nicholas.T]

Greetings Fabio, from Sydney, Australia!

Thank you for your great interview with Barbara Serra! She is a fabulous journalist and such a pleasure to listen to!

Interesting to hear you talk about the English “accent” that you wanted to develop, because as a native English speaker myself in Australia, my first thoughts were that your English accent was predominantly Australian! Not entirely, with little bits of a British accent, but DEFINITELY no New Zealand influence there at all that I could pick up on.

As this is the first YT video of yours that I’ve watched, my overall initial impression was that you had spent some time in Australia, because, to me, you speak English with a strong Australian accent. Your English speech is very, very good (obviously, as a teacher of English), with only a minor hint of your native Italian language accent coming through. You’ve gone past that stage where you speak in the “stereotypical” Italian way of ending every English word with a vowel, which I nonetheless find endearing!

[TJMack-]

I hear the Danish accent far more than the Italian one from Barbara, speaking as a native English speaker. Very interesting.

[iansliman]

I love Barbara ❤...I want to marry her....tomorrow.

[SteveB-ybwv]

Wow I could watch Barbara all day long. She exudes intelligence and femininity!

[ShawnLivesInItaly]

I watch NHK news from Japan in English its great. I like CNN but there is a bias potentially like the discuss eludes to.

[danadano]

it would be super interesting if you can source someone who is sociolinguistics or language acquisition expert to your videos. Barbara is great, but she puts some rather simpified pointers across that nowadays linguistics research challenges. She is not wrong as such, but just does not (for obvs reasons) taken into account the diversity of the question she refers to. very good episode though, thanks for sharing!

[iansliman]

Please please please 🙏 marry me ASAP Barbara.... I love you very very much...

[emmysharan]

Excellent discussion 😀👍👌😃☘❤😁🤔 very interesting and engaging!!
I never thought 💭🤔 of bi/tri/multilingual newsreaders the way you're talking about them!!
This superb conversation definitely sheds a bright 😎new light 🕯 on the issues they face!!
Props to you Barbara Serra, and to all of you journalists around the world!! 👏👏
Grazie Fabio excellent job right there Sir!! 😊👍
These types of content and videos are a breath of fresh air!! 😄❤☘👍
Give us more!!
Cheers to you all!!