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He ‘asked relevant and sensible questions, never seeking a performative edge to his journalism. The story and the guest took centre stage’
David Knowles, the journalist who has died aged 32, was known and cherished by a huge number of listeners all over the world for his dedicated work presenting the Telegraph’s award-winning Ukraine podcast; a naturally gifted broadcaster, he was a reassuringly authoritative presence who never pushed his own personality into the foreground, even though he felt deeply about the fate of the Ukrainian people.
Each episode would open with his clear and gentle tones: “I’m David Knowles, and this is Ukraine: The Latest.” He would introduce his fellow presenters, Telegraph colleagues Dominic Nicholls and Francis Dearnley, as well as special guests, and announce the dateline (“it’s Tuesday the 30th of July, two years and one hundred and sixty two days since the full-scale invasion began”) against the background of a quietly insistent percussive musical theme.
The podcast became a runaway hit – it is fast approaching 100 million downloads – prized by listeners (including senior players in the war) for the granular detail with which it illuminated day-to-day events in the Russia-Ukraine war, interviewing experts and hearing reports from the field. Knowles himself made four visits to Ukraine, including two to Bucha, site of a notorious massacre, and another an aid visit to Kramatorsk.
Dominic Nicholls, the Telegraph’s Associate Editor (Defence), who was one of the regular experts on the podcast, said: “David asked relevant and sensible questions, never seeking a performative edge to his journalism – the story and the guest took centre stage, he just enabled their stories to reach the audience in the most effective ways.”
On the podcast announcing Knowles’s death Nicholls noted how the “listeners’ engagement and humanity amid such darkness” had brought Knowles “great joy”. Francis Dearnley added that “his listeners included ambassadors and the heads of US departments, but he never changed. He was utterly authentic and without ego.”
After news emerged of Knowles’s death from a suspected cardiac arrest, listeners began posting comments in droves, many recording their feelings that he had become “like a member of the family”.
The Telegraph’s editor Chris Evans said: “David was exuberant and innovative. He was passionate about the cause of the Ukrainian people and their attempts to repel the Russian aggressor. Without his enthusiasm, the Ukraine podcast would not have been half as successful. He was also a gentle, sensitive man who inspired deep affection among his colleagues.”
The elder of two brothers, David Joseph Knowles was born on September 22 1991 in Ealing to Peter and Kaye Knowles; his mother is a former violinist with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and a holder of the Diplôme Supérieur in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, who became head of music at Gumley School for Girls, and his father is a broadcast journalist who has held senior positions at the BBC and is now a producer and correspondent for the US politics channel C-SPAN in Westminster.
Throughout his childhood David had worshipped at St Andrew’s United Reformed Church in Ealing, and after attending the Tiffin School he took a First in theology at Durham University, where he won the Jewish Studies Prize. He also did an Erasmus year at Strasbourg University, and took an MA in Biblical Studies at Durham and an MA in Digital Journalism at City, University of London.
A gifted linguist, he was fluent in French and had studied six ancient languages, particularly Biblical Hebrew. When travelling in Ukraine he made some very weak Czech go a long way.
Among David’s many and varied childhood passions was the historian Richard Holmes’s BBC documentary series War Walks, which gave a hint of his later interests (he could even recite the script by heart).
Intensely musical, he played the viola (and later the mandolin), sang as a tenor with university choirs, and loved summer tours to Europe with Ealing Youth Orchestra. Theatre was another big focus of his youth: he acted in plays at the Questors Theatre in Ealing and performed in Moira Buffini’s Silence with the National Youth Theatre.
Knowles performed with the Durham Revue, a sketch comedy group, at the Edinburgh Fringe for three successive years: his annoying baby penguin sketch had audiences in tears; and he directed memorable student theatre productions of The Bacchae and Dracula in the castle of University College, Durham.
Family holidays were spent visiting grandparents in Bolton and Grimsby, walking the moors, and on the Hebridean Isle of Islay, staying with his Aunt Jean in Laphroaig.
Knowles’s first job was producing social video for Mail Online; then, still in the area of social media, he spent three years with the World Economic Forum in Geneva. For one of those years, his mother Kaye, who was studying at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, joined him, and this was a happy time for both of them.
From there he moved to the Telegraph as Deputy Head of Social Media (later promoted to Head) and it was from that role that Ukraine: The Latest was born. He was later appointed Head of Audio Development.
Knowles had a flair for friendship and is remembered for his expansive eccentricity and an endearingly juvenile kind of silliness. One favourite impression was of a “curious and beguiling velociraptor”, as his family put it. He loved doing voices – a 19th-century aristocrat was one – and, to lift the mood of his 96-year-old grandma, Mary Knowles, of whom he took infinite care with visits and phone calls, he used mimicry, zany faces and blowing raspberries.
He was also prone to spontaneous gestures of generosity – such as, after joining the Southbank Centre, taking out tickets for a dozen or more concerts in a season so that he could invite different friends every night.
Outside journalism his interests ranged from cricket (he was not very good, but loved it so much he set up his own team, Larkhall Wanderers) to the history of the Napoleonic Wars – friends might not be surprised to be asked who was their favourite general in Napoleon’s army. He enjoyed translating Hebrew texts, and had rediscovered an appetite for playing Warhammer with old schoolfriends.
Ukraine: The Latest was shortlisted for the Innovation of the Year award at the British Journalism Awards in 2022 and in June this year was named Best News Podcast at the Publisher Podcast Awards.
David Knowles was in a relationship with his producer, Adélie Pojzman-Pontay. They were making plans to marry and have a family together, and, with his characteristic joy-filled enthusiasm, Knowles had requested an eight-voice, double choir for the wedding.
Knowles is also survived by his parents, by his younger brother Andrew, a civil servant at the Ministry of Justice, and by his grandmother.
David Knowles, born on September 22 1991, died September 8 2024
English