Comcast‘s NBC News and Sky News are joining forces to launch The World With Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim, a brand new weekly global affairs podcast that can “mix eyewitness reporting from the front line of the world’s most hazardous areas with in-depth evaluation and conversation with a few of crucial and influential figures on the worldwide stage.”
The brand new show will leverage the news expertise, reach and large names of the main U.S. and U.K. news brands which have been under the Comcast umbrella because the media, entertainment, telecom and technology giant’s 2018 acquisition of European media and tech powerhouse Sky.
Engel is the chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, while Hakim is the lead world news presenter for Sky News. Latest episodes will likely be available every Wednesday from Oct. 9 wherever you get your podcasts.
“Well-known to news audiences for his or her courageous coverage of hot zones across the globe, they’ve known one another as friendly competitors over the course of their award-winning careers,” Sky and NBC said. “Now under one roof at sister news organizations, they’ll come together each week to supply audiences a thoughtful have a look at our world’s most complex issues, as they provide listeners the total story, on the people shaping global events.”
Their goal: to supply listeners “a front-row seat to essentially the most pressing problems with our time.”
Hakim said she was “thrilled to be partnering with my friend Richard Engel, probably the most talented foreign correspondents of our time, on an exciting recent project to assist make sense of our world.” She added: “It is a moment of intensifying conflict and polarization. At times, it feels as if the concept of truth itself is vanishing, especially as technology makes it ever harder to inform the difference between what’s real and what’s fake, and as distrust between and inside societies grows. I hope subsequently this podcast can function a sort of port within the storm.”
Engel said that the launch of the podcast comes at an important time. “We’re within the midst of covering conflicts which have ripple effects across the globe. I can’t consider a greater person than Yalda Hakim to explore these complex events with and delve into a few of crucial issues,” he said. “She’s an incredible reporter, caring, hard-working and curious. Together, we’ll be talking to fascinating people about interesting and essential subjects which have made us witnesses to history.”
The inspiration for the podcast goes back to 2 key experiences of the hosts, Sky and NBC News said. In 2007, Engel was invited to the White House for a non-public one-on-one meeting with President George W. Bush to debate Iraq and Middle East policy. “It was Richard’s ability to be within the thick of the fighting while at the identical time provide fast, accurate and wide-reaching evaluation of what was happening that interested the president,” they said.
Meanwhile, in 2021, immediately prior to the autumn of Kabul, Hakim received a call from the Taliban continue to exist air. “In a world exclusive, the spokesman assured Hakim that nobody in the town could be harmed by their troops once they entered the town,” based on the news organizations. “It was an episode that highlighted that Yalda is one in every of the best-connected and well-respected journalists within the business — and the show will likely be drawing on her extensive contacts book to supply most knowledgeable and high-profile guests.”
NBC News and Sky News are targeting a world audience with the brand new podcast. “We’re proud to partner with Sky News in bringing together these world-class journalists on one program that is out there to audiences in all places,” emphasized David Verdi, executive vp, global newsgathering at NBC News.
“These delicate times call for more insight and evaluation — and that’s precisely the journalism that Yalda Hakim and Richard Engel can provide,” added David Rhodes, executive chairman, Sky News Group. “For greater than five years now, Sky News and NBC News have been under the identical corporate umbrella. Yalda and Richard’s collaboration will show the worldwide capabilities of that partnership: bringing the total story, first, to audiences world wide.”