Sheena Elizabeth McDonald (born 25 July 1954, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) is a British journalist and broadcaster.
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She graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1976 before gaining a postgraduate certificate in radio, film and television studies from the University of Bristol. Whilst at university in Edinburgh, she had a relationship with then-Rector Gordon Brown.[1] She also co-founded the Edinburgh Festival Fringe newspaper Festival News with Garfield Kennedy.
In 1978 she began her professional broadcasting career as a producer and presenter at BBC Radio Scotland. She switched to television in 1981 as a presenter and newsreader at STV, then went freelance in 1986, moving on to anchor such national radio and television news programmes as The World at One, Channel 4 News, The World This Week, After Dark and International Question Time and, in 1995, she received the first-ever 'Woman in Film and Television' Award.[2]
In February 1999 she was struck by a police van on its way to a 999 call in Clerkenwell, London.[4] She sustained massive head injuries, and it was almost five years before she returned to broadcasting, notably in a biographical documentary in which she spoke of her recuperation process and coming to terms with the psychological effects of her injury.[5][6]
In a relationship with BBC journalist Allan Little for five years before the accident, the couple subsequently married in 2006.[6]
She currently presents an education-focused news programme for the cable channel Teachers' TV.[7]