Above: Sir Trevor McDonald. Photo courtesy Trinidad Express archives.

“Modern journalism has lost its way. The need for speed has damaged the culture of thoughtful reporting. And we have sadly confused the lofty concept of balance with equivalence. Put simply, we emphasise giving equal time to contrasting views without considering whether either of the views merits the time allocated.”
 ― Trevor McDonald, An Improbable Life: The Autobiography

An appreciation of Sir Trevor McDonald. Video produced by James Saunders for MATT.

Sir Trevor McDonald (knighted in 1999 for services to journalism) began his broadcasting career in Trinidad in 1962, working in newspapers, radio and television.

He became a producer with the BBC World Service and moved to London in 1969, initially working for BBC Radio and then rising to fame as a broadcaster with the Independent Television News (ITN), producing news for ITV and Channel 4.

He began working with ITN in 1973 and worked in various roles before becoming the sole presenter of ITN’s News at Ten in 1992, a position he held until 1999.

Sir Trevor went on to present ITV’s early evening news programme, a resurrected News at Ten and then news in the 10:30PM slot.

He signed off the news at 10:30 in 2005, but while he was done with daily news, he wasn’t done with presenting and would go on to present a number of ITV programmes, including Tonight with Trevor McDonald, Extinct, This is Your Life, News Knight and Britain’s Greatest View.

A cricket fan, Sir Trevor has written biographies of West Indian batsmen Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd.
He returned to news, along with News at Ten in 2008, co-presenting with Julie Etchingham and Mark Austin.

Sir Trevor has received numerous awards for his work. He was named Newscaster of the Year three times and has received honorary degrees from several universities.

Sir Trevor McDonald signs copies of his autobiography at Express House. Photo courtesy Trinidad Express archives.

In 1999 he was awarded the British Academy of Film and Television Art’s Richard Dimbleby Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television and in 2011 was given the Academy Fellowship in the TV Baftas.

His 2019 autobiography, An Improbable Life documents his personal experiences with the globally famous and notorious figures he met and interviews and accounts of war and death.

Speaking to the English-Speaking Union, he explained his career: “I interview people to try and understand who they are and what they’re doing in their countries.”
“No matter how much you read about a place or a situation, there is always something more to learn when you get there.”