Lewis Goodall

Lewis Goodall (born 1 July 1989) is a British journalist, broadcaster and author.

Raised on a council estate in Birmingham, he worked as a journalist for Granada Studios before becoming a political correspondent for Sky News.

He later became policy editor of the BBC's late-night flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.

In 2022, along with then BBC presenters Emily Maitlis (Newsnight) and Jon Sopel (Politics Show), in frustration at the BBC's editorial policy, he quit the broadcaster to launch the The News Agents podcast.

Goodall was born on 1 July 1989.

A native of Birmingham, Goodall was raised on a council estate in Longbridge and attended the local Turves Green Boys' School and completed his A Levels at Cadbury Sixth Form College.

He had a teenage mother who was 17 at the time of his birth.

His father was a welder at the Rover Company factory near where he lived.

He studied at St John's College, Oxford, graduating in 2010 with a degree in history and politics.

While at Oxford he spent time in the United States working as an intern to the Democrat House Representative Diana DeGette.

He later became an Entente Cordiale scholar, spending time learning French in Paris and Mandarin Chinese at Beijing Normal University.

He was the first in his family to go to university.

Goodall was a volunteer and party member for the Labour Party whilst at school.

After graduation Goodall worked for Granada Studios as a question writer for the quiz show University Challenge.

. He worked for the centre-left think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research.

At the IPPR he was main researcher for the "Northern Economic Futures Commission" think tank.

He began his career in Jourlamism as a producer and reporter at the BBC in 2012, where he was a producer on the Daily Politics.

He later become Economics and Business Analyst for BBC News. In 2014 he joined BBC Newsnight as a political researcher, briefing presenters for major political interviews before becoming an occasional reporter for the programme as well as wider BBC output including Victoria Derbyshire and BBC Radio Four.

In 2015 Goodall reported from both the Charlie Hebdo shooting and November 2015 Paris attacks.

Goodall conducted the last interview with Labour Party politician Denis Healey before his death in October 2015.

He worked at the BBC until 2016 when he left to join Sky News, where he was a political correspondent.

At Sky News he became well known for his coverage of the Brexit crisis, the civil war within the Labour Party.

He became known for his elections and data analysis and became a main presenter on Sky's election programmes in 2017 and 2019.

His first book "Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party" was published in September 2018.

In September 2018, Goodall published his first book, Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party, an analysis of New Labour and Jeremy Corbyn.

. In 2019 he was named as one of MHP Communications '30 under 30' young journalists to watch.

In the same year he presented a documentary on the rise of Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party.

He returned in January 2020 to the BBC to join Newsnight as its policy editor.

His appointment was met with some criticism by Conservatives because, according to The Telegraph, Goodall had "made no secret of his political views" during his previous role at Sky News.

Goodall denies this.

He quickly became one of the most prominent faces of the corporation reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic, especially its impact on schools, care homes and excess deaths, which were widely praised.

In August 2020 he reported extensively on the on the A-level grading scandal, credited with changing government policy over which grades would be awarded to students in the exams seasons of that year.

For this work he was nominated for an Orwell Prize in 2021.

Later he reported and broke stories extensively on the UK's cladding and building safety crisis.

In 2022 he reported on the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War from the western Ukrainian border and refugee crisis in eastern Poland.

In the summer of 2022 he reported on the 2022 Italian general election and later that year presented a Radio Four documentary on the evolution of Conservative political thought "What is a Tory?"

Goodall featured in the BBC's election night coverage and was called a "rising star" of the corporation.

Goodhall writes for the New Statesman and other outlets.

In June 2022, Goodall announced he was leaving the BBC to join media company Global Media & Entertainment to make a daily podcast (The News Agents with Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel).

He stated on Twitter he would be remaining at Newsnight for "a while yet".