Trevor McDonald

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Trevor McDonald
Born 16 August 1939 (1939-08-16) (age 68)
San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago

Sir Trevor McDonald OBE (born George McDonald on 16 August 1939) is a Trinidadian-born British journalist and television presenter. He is a newscaster with ITN, notable for having been the first black news anchor in the UK.[1] His clear, confident delivery and serious attitude make him one of British television's most trusted reporters. He has won more awards than any other British broadcaster.[2]

McDonald is seen as a part of the broadcasting establishment, and he was knighted in 1999. A fellow leading TV journalist, David Dimbleby, was, however, quoted by The Sunday Telegraph[3] in February 2008 as stating that he does not believe journalists should accept honours. This was inevitably interpreted as a dig at Sir Trevor by Mr Dimbleby.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career

McDonald was born in Trinidad and Tobago in the West Indies and received his secondary education at Naparima College in San Fernando where he got his start in broadcasting through the Blue Circle Network, a school-wide broadcast. His mother had decided to name him Trevor, but when his father took him to be baptised he forgot and named him George McDonald. Despite this McDonald has always gone by the name of Trevor.

McDonald's father was an oil worker, and the family came from an unprivileged background. In spite of this, he sought to better his English by listening to the BBC World Service and reading extensively.[citation needed] He worked for the BBC World Service as a producer in the 1960s, and moved to the United Kingdom at the end of that decade.

[edit] ITN

He joined ITN as a reporter in 1973 and steadily rose to become a newsreader by the late 1970s. He consolidated his reputation for excellent reporting when he became Diplomatic Correspondent at Channel 4 News in 1982, and he became Diplomatic Editor there in 1987. In 1989 he became one of the presenters of News at 5.40 on ITV as well as presenting Channel 4 News and ITN’s weekend programmes on ITV. He presented the News at Ten bulletin from 1991 to 1999, and from 2001 until 2005, when News at Ten was briefly relaunched & then replaced with the ITV News at Ten Thirty. During this period he also hosted Granada Television's current affairs programme Tonight with Trevor McDonald. Indeed, on 29 November 2005, speculation that he was about to leave ITV to work elsewhere ended when he signed a further two year contract involving producing both a documentary show and a new series of interviews, which will be of a wider general interest than the work he has done up till now.

McDonald presented his last ITV News bulletin on December 15, 2005. The veteran newsreader stepped down from his role as anchor after more than 30 years at ITN, but said he had no plans to retire completely from television. Over the closing titles of the bulletin, the 1992 - 1999 News at Ten theme was played instead of the ITV News theme, as a tribute to McDonald.[4]

On October 31, 2007 ITV announced that early in 2008, McDonald would return to ITN to present the relaunched News at Ten together with Julie Etchingham.[5] He told a UK newspaper: "I couldn’t turn down the move back to that iconic time slot."[6] News at Ten began broadcasting its nightly bulletins again on Monday 14 January 2008.[7].

[edit] Other work and media appearances

  • McDonald is an Honorary Vice President of optical charity Vision Aid Overseas (VAO), alongside Fiona Bruce.
  • McDonald presented the TV series Undercover Customs which created reconstructions of the major HM Customs and Excise investigations in the UK.
  • Since their inception in 1995, he has presented the National Television Awards.
  • On 21 April 2006, McDonald presented an episode of Have I Got News For You with a good degree of success; he delivered the autocue jokes - some of which were extremely risqué - in his usual sober newscaster manner, the juxtaposition of which prompted team captain Paul Merton, who usually maintains a straight face on the show, to laugh heartily in disbelief on numerous occasions. It was McDonald's first appearance in any capacity on the show since 1992.
  • McDonald is Chancellor of London South Bank University. He also has intimate ties with King's College School in Wimbledon, a London day school. He acts as an advocate for the school in its promotional videos and presides at important events in its calendar. He was notably a guest speaker and presenter of awards at King's College Junior School prizegiving in 2002, where he made a moving eulogy to Tony Hein, a departing member of staff.
  • McDonald is the author of biographies of the cricketers Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd. He has worked as an editor of poetry anthologies, and his autobiography Fortunate Circumstances was published in 1993.
  • Lenny Henry's comic character Trevor McDoughnut, is a spoof of McDonald. McDonald once surprised Henry during a performance of McDoughnut on Tiswas by walking in to the studio to sit with Henry. Trevor returned to Tiswas on two further occasions. Firstly, a number of weeks following his original surprise appearance, Trevor cropped up during a spoof edition of This Is Your Life to 'reminisce' with Lenny Henry about the earlier event. The other appearance occurred during the "Tiswas Reunited" show (a reunion programme transmitted in June 2007) where Sir Trevor joined Lenny on the sofa to, once again, look back at the old clips and comment upon Lenny's impersonation.
  • Performed live in Hyde Park in summer 1996 with The Who, as the newsreader in the group's staging of their Quadrophenia.
  • In June 2007, McDonald hosted the new ITV version of This Is Your Life, with Simon Cowell being the programme's "victim".
  • In June 2007, McDonald began hosting the new ITV television series News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald.
  • McDonald holds an Honorary Award from the University of Plymouth.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sir Trevor McDonald
  2. ^ Sir Trevor reads final bulletin
  3. ^ Question time for partial Sir Trevor over knighthood, Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved on 2008-02-10.
  4. ^ ITV News at 10:30, Trevor McDonald's last bulletin (December 15, 2005). Youtube video.
  5. ^ "News at Ten returns to ITV", itv.com, 31 October 2007. Retrieved on 2007-10-31. 
  6. ^ Diamonds are for Trevor (The Sun Online)
  7. ^ Martha Kearney's week

[edit] External links