Donald Mac Cormick R I P

Disclaimer:
This posting was NOT written by me and in no way am I trying to pass it off as my own work. You will notice that my copyright is not on the bottom.

I respected Mr Mac Cormick as a top current affairs journalist with the BBC,in the late 1980s, when I started to watch Newsnight. He was a regular presenter. As a mark of respect here is his obituary taken from the The Guardian newspaper (14th July 2009).


by Brian Wilson


Donald MacCormick, who has died of a heart attack aged 70, was a broadcaster of both style and substance whose calm commentaries illuminated the tumultuous political events of the late 1970s and 80s. He was a highly regarded BBC presenter of both the revived Tonight programme from 1975 and its successor, Newsnight. MacCormick became an essential centerpiece of party conference coverage where he commanded respect for both his knowledge of the political scene and his calm professionalism.

The post-Thatcher era and the advent of John Birt as the BBC's director general did not augur well for MacCormick's courteous though penetrating style of interviewing. Part of the "Lime Grove crowd" who were viewed as an expensive hangover from a less accountancy-driven age, he departed for London Weekend Television to present their flagship political programmes. When LWT's commitment to politics proved shortlived after the 1992 election, MacCormick went back to working for the BBC, though there was no open door for a returning freelance, however distinguished, and his subsequent role, mainly with the fledgling BBC World, scarcely did justice to his abilities.

MacCormick's father was a Glasgow teacher who died when Donald was six. This resulted in him being extremely close to the family of his lawyer uncle, John, a partner in the firm of MacCormick and Neil. Coincidentally, this partnership, in name at least, would be revived in later years by Donald as Newsnight presenter and Ron Neil, whose father had been the other lawyer in the firm, as his editor in the early 1980s.

Aside from his legal work, "King John" MacCormick, Donald's uncle, was a Liberal and devolutionist who was also arguably the father of popular Scottish Nationalism through the Scottish Covenant, a petition for devolved home rule which gained widespread support in the early 1950s. Donald was therefore steeped in Scottish politics from an early age.

Educated at King's Park secondary school in Glasgow, he then became part of a famous generation of gifted and political Glasgow University students, which included John Smith, Donald Dewar, Derry Irvine and Menzies Campbell. MacCormick was chairman of the Labour Club. However, while he retained a lifelong fascination with politics, his interests were diverse and he never sought a political career. Having edited the university's literary magazine, he taught English at the High School of Glasgow for five years, but broadcasting was his natural calling. He started by presenting a books programme for STV and then, in 1967, moved to Grampian in Aberdeen as a news reporter.

His next step was to join BBC Scotland in Glasgow as a current affairs presenter. The early 1970s was something of a golden age for BBC Scotland, which made serious programmes on which MacCormick worked alongside Magnus Magnusson, the fine industrial journalist Hugh Cochrane and latterly Andrew Neil, who became a close friend. MacCormick's role was not restricted to politics and he probably came to London's attention by presenting programmes from the Edinburgh festival.

When Michael Bunce was in the process of reviving the Tonight programme in a late-night slot, he selected a Scotsman, an Irishman and an Englishwoman as his presenters: MacCormick, Denis Tuohy and Sue Lawley. Non-Oxbridge accents were not common in the mid-70s. However, even the most fastidious defender of received pronunciation could scarcely object to Donald's gentle west of Scotland cadence. When Tonight evolved into Newsnight, MacCormick became one of the regular presenters, along with Peter Snow and John Tusa. He was liked and admired by all who worked with him.

His Newsnight role lasted throughout the Thatcher years, but by the end of it, MacCormick was ready for another challenge and welcomed an approach from LWT. One of his great supporters within the Corporation had been Robin Day, who saw an interviewer in the same mould as himself - non-confrontational but a skilful cross-examiner.

Donald was devoted to the cousins with whom he and his brother had grown up in Glasgow: Iain, who was first a Scottish Nationalist MP and then a founder member of the SDP, and Sir Neil MacCormick, the regius professor of law at Edinburgh University and former Nationalist MEP who died earlier this year; an event that affected Donald deeply.

Married first to Lis MacKinlay, a Glasgow University contemporary with whom he had three children, Donald married the BBC producer Liz Elton in 1978 and they had two children. They all survive him.

• Donald MacCormick, broadcaster, born 16 April 1939; died 12 July 2009

guardian.co.uk © Guardian