Dhaliwal’s ‘World’ Commands a Loyal Following

On ITN’s “World News for Public Television,” airing from London, Daljit Dhaliwal brings international stories to Americans five days a week alongside Jennings, Rather, Brokaw and PBS stalwart Jim Lehrer.

But because her newscast often airs against those icons of American broadcast news, only viewers who have searched the airwaves for more in-depth foreign coverage, or for an alternative viewpoint, know who she is.

Still, such viewers are often devoted fans, and Dhaliwal, a very slender woman of 5-foot-3, finds that they are the ones--especially those in large cities, where her program draws its largest audiences--who sometimes recognize her.

“I’ve been stopped in the Carnegie Deli in New York and the Gap in Miami,” she said. “When I went shopping” in the Washington area, “there were a couple of women at Nordstrom’s and they recognized the voice, and they said, ‘Are you the news reader?’ The program crosses over to different types of people.”

Besides her “World News” duties, Daljit--pronounced Dal-jeet in India and Dal-jit (her preference) in Britain--reports at 7 p.m. weekdays for Channel 4 News, the main newscast on one of Britain’s five TV channels. She occasionally stands in for daytime anchors on LBC, a London talk-radio station. ITN produces Channel 4’s news and owns LBC.

She also is one of 10 “presenters”--anchors, in U.S. parlance--for ITN News Channel, launched Aug. 1, a digital all-news channel. The 24-hour service is transmitted live to televisions, digital radios, telephones, PCs, laptops and, later this year, videophones.

In the United States, one of Dhaliwal’s fans is “Late Show’s” David Letterman, who said he had watched Dhaliwal “for years and years” via a satellite dish. Letterman talked with her on his July 6 show, telling viewers “you should see her present the news because, no matter what the news, it makes you feel better about life, about the world and about yourself. . . . I want this woman to bring me the news every night.”

Calling her “gracious and smart, calm and soothing,” he assured her that CBS anchor Dan Rather, whom he compared to “an old saddle,” would be happy to step down and let Dhaliwal, 37, take over his news desk. (He offered to marry her “for that green-card thing.”) She laughed.

Letterman is not her only admirer. In 1999, Dhaliwal was one of People’s “50 Most Beautiful People” (she was No. 37) and one of Esquire’s “Women We Love.” Fans have built Web sites devoted to her.

‘Very Hands-On

With My Scripts’

American viewers first saw Dhaliwal in November 1996 when ITN’s “World News” was offered on 19 U.S. stations. Two years later the BBC geared up a competing news program. Some stations chose the BBC show; others, hearing from Dhaliwal’s fans, decided to air both. And new PBS stations signed on for ITN.

Now “World News” airs on 72 PBS stations, potentially reaching 55% of Americans, mainly those who live in the seven largest television markets, said Kellie Specter of WNET-TV in New York City.

Some of the program’s stories aired earlier in the day in Britain, and others are new or repackaged for Americans.

“You’ll get straightforward reportage, but you’ll also get longer stories, especially investigations that ITN has broken,” said Dhaliwal. “People can tune in and get information about what’s happening in Europe and Asia. A half an hour does go very quickly, and a special investigation goes 12, 13 minutes. Some viewers say they would like an hour.”

Before becoming an ITN presenter, Dhaliwal worked as a reporter in northern Ireland, Scotland and northern England as a follow-on to a BBC training program--”the best in the world,” she said. “The best way to learn your craft is to be in the business. I don’t think you can learn journalism sitting in a classroom. If you want to be a reporter, and you want to sharpen your instincts, you can only do that on the road.”

Northern Ireland, she said, “is basically where I cut my teeth as a journalist. I spent a lot of time in Donegal, Derry, Dublin, Connemara. I was based in Belfast for a year and a half.”

At ITN, where she’s worked since 1995, Dhaliwal still keeps a jacket in her office in case she’s sent out on a story. But that doesn’t mean she just shows up for her show and reads what her producers have written.

“I’m very hands-on with my scripts,” she said. “The words that are said by me have been rewritten by me. I’ve been there the longest on the program and worked with international news a lot, more than anybody on the team. I come up with ideas for stories. You don’t stop being a journalist just because you’re sitting in a studio.”

And it’s important to her that viewers understand she has a news background.

“In Britain we don’t have the tradition of picking somebody because they look and sound good,” she said. “I’m very, very opposed to that. You need to know how to handle interviews. You need to know how to make it more balanced, to get both sides of the story, to be more accurate. If you just pulled somebody off the street, they’re not going to know that.”

Still, for ITN’s “World News,” she acknowledged that her role “is basically behind the desk--that’s the format.”

She might have been behind a desk anyway if she’d picked her other career option:, teaching. With a degree in philosophy and history from Polytechnic of East London (now the University of East London) and a master’s degree in politics, history and economics from the University of London, Dhaliwal considered teaching and journalism.

High Achiever

and ‘Trailblazer’

“I was always interested in doing something involving public service,” she said. “I thought journalism would be more exciting and fun. And I’m right, because some of my friends who went into teaching are so depressed.”

Dhaliwal’s choice of a career reflects her independence. She, her sister and two brothers, born and raised in London, are “all very different, very individualistic, and that’s partly because of the way we were raised,” she said. “Our parents basically left us to our own devices.”

Her parents, she said, had a traditional arranged marriage in India. “Basically they both saw each other on the day they got married. My father came over [to England from Punjab] in the ‘50s; my mother came over in the ‘60s.”

As the eldest, Dhaliwal said, “I’m the first person in my family to go to university, to pass a driving test, to get a car, to leave home, to take a foreign holiday without the family. I think I was just a self-starter, fairly focused and motivated. Being the oldest does give you certain kind of privileges, but I mean responsibility--privileges rather than rewards or entitlements--the opportunity to learn new things, to be the trailblazer.”

Dhaliwal, who is single, lives in London’s chic Notting Hill area, and because she is the daughter of parents born in India, she is often asked to be a cultural bridge. In February, she moderated a panel on International Press Freedom Day at the United Nations. In April, she was part of a British contingent that went to India to improve ties between the two countries.

* “World News for Public Television” airs weekdays at 5 p.m. on KCET-TV in Los Angeles.