Jim Naughtie leaves BBC Radio 4's Today programme after 21 years

Jim Naughtie has presented his final “wonderfully chaotic” edition of the flagship BBC Radio 4 Today programme, bowing out after 21 years.
Naughtie, who will be a special correspondent for Radio 4, said he was pleased to no longer set the alarm for 2.59am, but admitted he would “long for the camaraderie of the studio”.
The final day of presenting did not go off without a hitch for Naughtie, however, with the line to Sir John Major getting lost during the prime 8.10am interview slot.
The programme ended just before 9am with a compilation of Naughtie’s best moments, including when the actor Judi Dench spontaneously recited word-perfect Shakespeare, as well as moments with Ringo Starr when Naughtie said it had taken “50 years to interview a Beatle”, and others including David Hockney and Alan Bennett.
It omitted the time that the presenter accidentally mispronounced the name of the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, using the c-word.
“The wonderful thing about this programme is so much comes your way, you just sit here and let it flow towards you like a tidal wave. That’s the joy of this programme, except when lines go down. It’s nice to end with that tradition,” Naughtie said.
“But you know what it’s like,” he said to fellow presenter John Humphrys. “You just sit here and extraordinary things happen.”
Naughtie named his most memorable moments as time he spent on the road, including the handover in Hong Kong in 1997, wars in Kosovo and Iraq, and the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama fight for the Democratic nomination in 2008 and the subsequent election.

Naughtie’s last morning on the programme was not without mishap, including losing the line to Major mid-interview. “I can hear a terrible silence, and there is really nothing happening,” Naughtie said, lamenting that the former prime minister had been “in the middle of a paragraph”.
Major was eventually put back through to the studio via a phone line. “It’s as if the technology hasn’t changed in 21 years,” Naughtie said, recalling that he started his broadcast career while Major was in No 10.

Major, who was speaking about the European Union earlier in the interview, gave a warm tribute to Naughtie when he got back on the air. “Like millions of other people I have found you and John Humphrys my daily diet in the morning,” he said.
“So if I may grab the airways for a moment, I would like to say I’ll miss you and I think a lot of other people will because generally you’ve asked the right questions, mostly you’ve listened to the answers in an extraordinarily professional way so I hope when you leave, you’re proud of what you’ve done. Whatever you do now, I hope our paths will cross.”
“It’s not often on this programme you get to say ‘I agree with what that politician said’, but I think I can say that today,” Humphrys said to his studio partner. “The last part anyway, for the rest we should be entirely neutral.”
The presenter’s most memorable slip-up on air was his now legendary slip of the tongue over the name of Jeremy Hunt in 2010, replacing the first letter of Hunt’s surname with a “C”.
Hunt paid tribute to Naughtie on Wednesday morning, making light of “the occasional mispronunciation”.

The stumble over the surname sent the broadcaster into a coughing fit. To add insult to injury for the health secretary, the BBC’s Andrew Marr made exactly the same slip-up just hours later as he described the incident.
Recalling the moment in the Mail on Sunday, Naughtie said: “The transposition of two initials meant that within two minutes, in Twitter-time an age, I was an object of national notoriety (and considerable amusement).
“I can still see the emails and tweets cascading down the screens in the office from listeners who couldn’t believe what they’d heard (but mostly hoped they had). My most mortifying moment by a mile.
“But, perversely, the Hunt episode confirmed what I’ve always believed – that the vast majority of listeners know we’re trying to be fair. In adversity, I got the benefit of the doubt. It was appreciated.”
No other programme “has a wider window on the world, nor so much intimacy,” Naughtie wrote in the piece. “Listeners are stirring in their beds – and so are the political classes. They’re anxious to get on the air, except when you want them most.”
Many listeners, past and present guests also paid tribute to Naughtie during his final show, including the Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin.