Charlene White: 'Radio 1Xtra gave me the confidence to fight for stories'

"It shaped the person, the journalist I turned out to be because we were given the time and we were given the tools."

Charlene White joined 1Xtra as a reporter in 2002 - the year the station launched.

In 2005, she teamed up with DJ G Money as a presenter on the station's two-hour news, magazine and documentary programme.

She has since gone on to become the first black woman to present ITV's News at Ten and also regularly hosts Loose Women.

But for Charlene, the time she spent with 1Xtra is something she remembers fondly because it gave her the confidence to "fight for the stories" that matter.

'Continuing to be me'

Speaking to BBC Newsbeat on 1Xtra's 20th anniversary week, Charlene says working there has had a significant impact on her approach.

"My mum was a social worker. So I'm all about fighting for people whose voices tend to be silenced," she says.

"That's always been within me to do, but 1Xtra gave me the confidence to do it, and the way that I've continued to do it in my career."

Charlene teamed up with DJ G Money as a presenter on 1Xtra's two-hour news, magazine and documentary programme in 2005

Charlene says covering issues at 1Xtra meant telling stories that "impacted the environments we'd grown up with, impacted our mates, people up and down the country" but were not seen widely in the media.

She describes the team she was in as "one of the most diverse", and says they "loved the culture, the music and from that came stories that you wouldn't see anywhere else".

The biggest story she covered at the time was the death of two young girls, Charlene Ellis, 18, and Letisha Shakespeare, 17, who were shot in Aston, Birmingham, on 2 January 2003.

Charlene says much of the media coverage at the time didn't "understand where they were from… they never lived in estates".

"They did not know what that life was like. And as a result, they didn't talk to those journalists," she says.

"But they would talk to us. They recognised us in terms of the way we looked, the way we dress, the way we spoke, the way we approached people and the way we told that story was very different."

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Being at 1Xtra as "a good journalist and telling stories" gave Charlene the inspiration she could do the job "by just being me".

"I refused to change who I am [after leaving 1Xtra] because I'd spent so much time at 1Xtra being a good journalist and telling stories. I knew I could do the job by just being me," she tells Newsbeat.

"So continuing to be me was very important."

And it seems nothing would get in the way of Charlene doing the news, even on a floor filled with hip-hop and R&B stars.

She recalls an encounter with an up-and-coming artist, who was sitting in her chair. She describes taking him by the shoulders and "shoving him across the other side of the room" so she could present her news bulletin.

After a brief apology from Kanye West - who was also in the studio - she realised several months later, after seeing his music video, that it was actually John Legend she had forced out of the way.

And if you think Charlene has stopped listening to 1Xtra just because she's left the network, think again.

"I still listen to Ace almost every afternoon, it's still very much a part of me," she says.

"Just because I left 1Xtra and became a woman in her 40s, doesn't mean I don't still love the culture. That was the unifier and always will be."

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