Barbara Serra

Barbara Serra (born 19 August 1974 in Milan) is an Italian-born British-based journalist and TV newsreader, who presents from London on Al Jazeera.

Biography

Born in Milan to Italian parents, she was raised in Copenhagen from the age of nine. As a result, Serra is multi-lingual, with a native language of Italian, secondary languages of English and Danish, and is fluent in French.

Career

In 1993, she moved to the UK to read International Relations at the London School of Economics, and then trained as a journalist via a Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism at City University, London.

Serra's journalistic career started at the BBC, where she worked her way up from a researcher, spending three years working as a producer/presenter for BBC London News, produced on Radio 4's Today programme and regularly presented EuroNews on BBC Radio Five Live. Her most challenging on-air moment was having to improvise a 5 minute radio bulletin without any scripts due to a technical mishap.

In 2003, she joined Sky News as a reporter, working on both domestic and international assignments. Serra covered a wide range of stories, from the death of Pope John Paul II in Rome, to the Michael Jackson trial in California.

In July 2005, as part of a Sky News deal to deliver Five News, she became presenter of the evening News on four nights on Five.

Serra left Five News in April 2006, when it was announced that she had joined Al Jazeera English as one of its London-based news...
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