Ex-Channel 4 News host Jon Snow reveals he has Alzheimer’s
Jon Snow, the lead presenter of Channel 4 News for 32 years, has revealed he has Alzheimer’s disease.
The 78-year-old journalist and his wife Precious Lunga will be seen navigating his diagnosis in a film that will receive its premiere next week.
“At the beginning I wanted to hide it, there’s so much prejudice,” he says in the film.
“Any sort of hint of mental decay, you’re sort of dead. There are moments when it pops up but it’s not an all day every day condition, and that’s what I cling onto.”
Snow was the lead presenter on Channel 4 News from 1989 to 2021, after serving as ITN’s Washington correspondent and diplomatic editor in the 80s.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described him as “a true giant in journalism” who is now “helping others feel less alone and raising awareness of a condition that affects so many families”.
In an interview with the Daily Mail to support an Alzheimer’s Society campaign, Snow said: “If I don’t speak out, who will?”
Asked about the impact of the disease, he said: “I don’t know really. I don’t feel disabled in any way.”
He said he still questions the diagnosis. “I mean sometimes I doubt whether I’ve really got it. I don’t know if it’s widespread knowledge,” he told his friend, broadcaster Kirsty Lang.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, and the Alzheimer’s Society said it is a common misconception to question whether dementia is a normal part of ageing.
Snow’s wife, an epidemiologist, told the Mail he was initially reluctant to see a doctor, but he saw a specialist in 2023.
“He was given what’s called a mini-mental state exam and he aced it. He got 29 out of 30,” she said.
“It was only later, when they did a brain scan, that we got a diagnosis.”
Michelle Dyson, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said Snow’s decision to talk publicly was “a real act of courage and his story will resonate with so many”.
“Alongside his wife Precious, Jon is shining a light on the need for faster, fairer access to diagnosis,” she said.
‘Dearly loved by viewers’
In his new documentary, Jon Snow: A Last Big Story, he is seen uncovering an environmental disaster in Zambia.
The film will have its premiere at Sheffield Documentary Festival next week and be shown on Channel 4 on 20 June.
Channel 4’s head of news Louisa Compton said: “Jon Snow is not just one of Channel 4’s most recognisable faces – he is part of our very fabric and is dearly loved by viewers around the UK.
“It is a profound privilege that we are able to document his last big investigation, in a sensitively made film that frames Jon’s current affairs nous alongside a new life lived with Alzheimer’s.
“We hope this film will go a long way to raise awareness of how to live whilst facing a life-changing diagnosis.”
During his Channel 4 career, Snow was a fixture in the studio as well as travelling around to report on stories including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the release of Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama’s inauguration.
He received Bafta’s Richard Dimbleby Award for the best factual contribution to television in 2005, and the Bafta Fellowship – the organisation’s highest accolade – in 2015.
His other honours include 10 Royal Television Society awards, including six for presenter of the year.
