[1] Rowlatt has been a correspondent on Newsnight, Channel 4 News and Panorama and has been nominated for Royal Television Society and BAFTA awards for his work.

[citation needed] One of Rowlatt's first jobs in television was as an assistant producer on current affairs documentary Panorama, where, among many other stories, he worked on a programme which showed how Mercedes, Volkswagen and Volvo car dealers were fixing prices in Britain.

[2] During his time on Channel 4 News, he was a passenger on the train involved in the Hatfield rail crash in 2000, reporting that he "watched the carriages skid and whip around on the gravel besides the track".

[4][5] On Rowlatt's first day at the programme, Peter Barron, the editor, challenged him and his family to spend a year trying to reduce their impact on the environment.

Rowlatt, who acknowledges his debt to Hickman (and to Lucy Siegle, author of Green Living in the Urban Jungle),[5][6] continued in this vein, focusing on environmental impact, especially his carbon footprint[8][9] (rather than, say, labour rights).

[10] In 2007, Rowlatt presented an hour-long prime-time programme exploring how the United States is engaging with the climate issue for BBC Two's This World, titled "Can Obama Save the Planet?".

During his time as a Newsnight correspondent he caused a minor scandal when the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, complained about his dress sense.

[16] Rowlatt has presented prime time television series including The Trouble with Working Women[17] with Sophie Raworth.

His dispatches have included reflections on his experiences with the Awa tribe in the Amazon,[22] the time he discussed gay rights while taking a sauna with two homophobic Russians,[23] and what India's space scientists and street children have in common.