Samantha Simmonds
Samantha Simmonds has been a broadcast journalist for over 15 years. She is a main presenter for Sky News – where she has been working for 7 years. She regularly anchors the evening paper reviews, and the main morning and afternoon programmes. Samantha has broken some of the biggest stories of the past few years including the Aurora cinema shootings in Colorado, news of Michael Jackson’s death, the death of Amy Winehouse and the sentencing and subsequent hanging of Saddam Hussein. Among Samantha’s most recent highlights were presenting at the Olympic Park on the night of the Olympic opening ceremony and on location outside Buckingham Palace during the Royal wedding – covering ‘the kiss’ and interviewing the crowds. She regularly interviews senior politicians, celebrities and ordinary people touched by extraordinary events.
Samantha started reporting for BBC local radio in Yorkshire in 1995 before joining Channel 5 as a producer in 1996. She started reporting for BBC News in 2000 – working for BBC Breakfast and BBC London news. With the BBC, Samantha covered many big stories such as the Soham murders, the Potters Bar train crash, the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from New York, and she reported on the 7/7 bombings in London.