Behind the business: Robert Peston

Robert Peston

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Billion-pound scoops have made the BBC business editor a key face for the corporation.

"Robert Peston might as well retire," said one business journalist of 20 years' experience last week. "It's not going to get any better [for him] than the last year."

But such is the ambition of the BBC business editor, he is unlikely to agree.

Last September, Peston broke the news that Northern Rock was close to collapse and had approached the Bank of England for emergency financial support. The fallout saw queues
of worried customers snaking outside branches and a debate over whether, by breaking the news, the BBC had contributed to Northern Rock's troubles.

Then, last week, he revealed that Lloyds TSB and HBOS were in advanced merger talks to create a savings and mortgage supergroup - arguably an even bigger story.

BBC economics and business unit editor Jeremy Hillman says Peston called him at 9am on 17 September, then broke the story on BBC News channel shortly afterwards.

According to Hillman "as he spoke live we could immediately see the markets move and HBOS shares start to climb".

Given Peston's run of scoops and the perilous state of the financial markets it is inevitable that his stock should have risen within the BBC.

Director general Mark Thompson sent out an email at the start of this week praising the BBC's news output over the previous seven days and picking out Peston by name.

It's hardly surprising, given that one report claims he made 38 TV appearances last Wednesday alone. This work ethic is one of the things that a BBC news insider highlights about him.
"He's incredibly driven by his subject and he works long hours. He'll do the Today programme in the morning, break stories on the news channel, and then do the 10 O'Clock News in the evening. He's serious, very bright, incredibly self-confident - verging on arrogant in fact - but then he would probably have to be to do that job. He's a bit of a loner in the way that he operates, although he's really good at sharing information. That's great for directing our coverage."

Somewhat unusually for the corporation, Peston has a very traditional print journalism background, having held senior positions at the Financial Times and Sunday Telegraph before joining the BBC in February 2006. The result, according to one BBC source, is the accusation that he is "not the greatest broadcaster". But while he may not be a natural - some of his reporting can seem a little jargon-heavy - the scale of his stories appears to have won many viewers and listeners over.

"He's had an amazing record on scoops, which traditionally the BBC hasn't done that well on, compared with the quality of its analysis," says the source. "There is an issue about whether some of his reporting might go over the heads of a general audience, but the [current financial] problems are complex issues.

"He also makes excellent use of his blog. Before the internet, the BBC would have had nowhere for him to go into things in greater depth and it might have been hard to have persuaded him to come to the BBC. Instead, he can also write the kind of stuff he's used to producing for an informed audience."

With business stories continuing to dominate the news agenda, Peston's informed audience is likely to get pretty big, pretty quickly.