Acclaimed British journalist and TV host John Stapleton has died. He was 79.
The television figure was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in October 2024. He died peacefully on September 21 in a hospital after complications from both pneumonia and his Parkinson’s.
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Stapleton was the most famous face of TV news for a generation of Brits, hosting or appearing on shows across several different networks like Nationwide and Watchdog for the BBC, GMTV’s News Hour and Good Morning Britain, and ITV’s Daybreak.
Charlotte Hawkins, former host of Good Morning Britain, described him as a “brilliant broadcaster” and a “genuinely lovely man” in a tribute.
Another Good Morning Britain figure, series co-creator and current BBC executive Erron Gordon, said Stapleton “had an innate ability to navigate any challenge from breaking news to technical hiccups, whether in the studio or on location he was brilliant,” describing him as “unmatched.”
Stapleton hosted Watchdog with his wife, Lynn Faulds Wood. She passed away after a stroke in 2020.
When he was diagnosed, he told the BBC he attempted to be calm and stay positive, “because what’s the point in not being?”
His son, Nick, also went on to become a BBC journalist. In a lengthy Instagram post, he wrote how he was “incredibly blessed to have had two pretty remarkable parents” and that “losing them both comparatively young is very hard to take.”
“He was just a very loving, unbelievably generous man. You won’t meet anyone with a bad word to say about him. And you can’t do much better than that,” he wrote.
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