Making THE NEWS

When it comes to setting the current affairs agenda, women are getting increasingly powerful, at last. Here we celebrate today's main players

- CHRISTABEL SMITH

Their faces are as familiar as family, and even when the news is dreadful, we'd rather hear it from them. Back in 1975, Angela Rippon was the BBC's first permanent female newscaster. When she danced on Morecambe and Wise's Christmas show a year later, she wowed viewers who'd never seen her legs before - and what legs they were! Moira Stuart was another barrier-buster, becoming the first female Caribbean newsreader on British TV in 1981. She later presented every news bulletin devised by the BBC, aside from the Ten O'Clock News. Foreign correspondent Orla Guerin was given her first flak jacket without armour plates, which she said was 'as much use as a white handkerchief'. War reporter Kate Adie was similarly fearless, provoking one commentator's remark that it was wise to catch a plane from an airport where Kate Adie had just got off. With these trailblazers in mind, we shine the spotlight on today's queens of current affairs.

NAGA MUNCHETTY

Her full name is Subha Nagalakshmi Munchetty-Chendriah but her mum called her Naga because it means cobra- and she dreamt about snakes when she was pregnant. As well as being a financial expert, the high-achieving BBC Breakfast presenter also plays the piano and trumpet, and aces tournaments at golf.

NEWSFLASH She won Celebrity Mastermind in 2013, with the Ryder Cup from 1979 to the present day as her specialist subject.

LAURA KUENSSBERG

In 2015, aged 38, Laura took over from Nick Robinson as the BBC's political editor, the only woman ever to have held the role. Even with her journalistic skills, it would have been impossible to predict the turbulent years that lay ahead. One thing was certain: with two general elections, Brexit, a global pandemic and war, she's never run out of content.