TREVOR MCDONALD. Born in San Fernando, Trinidad, 16 August 1939. Attended schools in Trinidad. Married: 1) Josephine (divorced); 2) Sabrina; children: Timothy, Jamie and Joanne. Reporter, local radio in Trinidad, 1959; announcer, sports commentator and assistant programme manager; joined Trinidad Television, 1962; producer for the Caribbean Service and World Service in London, BBC, 1969; reporter, Independent Television News, 1973-78; sports correspondent, ITN, 1978-80; diplomatic correspondent, ITN, 1980-82; diplomatic correspondent and newscaster, Channel Four News, 1982-87; diplomatic editor, Channel Four News, 1987-89; newscaster, ITN's News at 5.40, 1989-90; newscaster, ITN's News At Ten since 1990. Officer of the Order of the British Empire, 1992. Recipient: TRIC Newscaster of the Year, 1993. Address: Independent Television News, 200 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1 8XZ, England.

TELEVISION (selection)

1982-89   Channel Four News
1989-90   News at 5.40
1990-       News at Ten

PUBLICATIONS

Viv Richards--A Biography. London, Pelham, 1984.

Clive Lloyd--A Biography. London; New York: Granada, 1985.

Queen and Commonwealth. London: Methuen, 1986.

Fortunate Circumstances (autobiography). London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1993.

 

 

   

Trevor McDonald is the comforting face of night time news. As Big Ben chimes 10:00 o'clock, McDonald looks up from his news desk and with considerable gravitas, reads out the news headlines for ITN (Independent Television News). Although this act is undertaken in newsrooms across Britain, he occupies a very particular position in the media firmament. McDonald is not only one of the most respected elder statesmen of news broadcasting (at 55), but has been an abidingly positive role model for countless young black Britons growing up in a society where skin colour still matters. He was born in Trinidad and came to Britain in 1969 to work for the BBC World Service and joined ITN a few years later as its first black reporter. McDonald has quietly got on with doing his job, courting neither controversy nor fame, but a settled life doing what he does best. Because of his extreme visibility as, still, one of a few token black media professionals who are regularly on television, he has been criticized for not using his privileged position more overtly to combat racism and discrimination. However, as he argued the point in the Radio Times, although he is aware of "racial undercurrents in this country...I have been very lucky and found none at all."

His most important contribution to television is probably his exemplary professionalism as a black newscaster and journalist who manifests a positive role to younger generations, in counterpoint to many of the more stereotyped media portraits of black communities in Western societies. He also offers a non-threatening image to those who know nothing of black people other than their vicarious experiences of television. As evidence to his illustrious career, he was awarded TRIC's "Newscaster of the Year," and in 1993 Officer of the OBE.

-Karen Ross