Martha Kearney

Martha Catherine Kearney (born October 8 1957) is a British broadcaster and journalist. Kearney was raised in an academic environment in Sussex and Edinburgh; her father, the historian Hugh Kearney, taught at the universities there. She was educated at Brighton and Hove High School, a girls' independent school in Brighton, and at George Watson's College, a co-educational independent school in Edinburgh. She later read Classics at St Anne's College, Oxford (1976-80). After graduating, Kearney began her career with a variety of jobs at the London commercial radio station, LBC.

In 1998, she moved to the BBC, as a regular presenter of BBC Radio 4's long-running Woman's Hour. In 2000 she became Political Editor of Newsnight on BBC Two. In addition, Kearney often presented the programme, as well as its semi-independent cultural affairs supplement Newsnight Review. She has also been an occasional presenter of the Today Programme on Radio 4. She was a candidate to succeed Andrew Marr as BBC Political Editor in 2005 but lost out to Nick Robinson.

Kearney presented her final Woman's Hour on 19 March 2007 and her final Newsnight on 23 March 2007, before taking up her new role as the lead presenter of Radio 4's lunchtime news and current affairs programme The World at One on 16th April 2007. She remains an occasional presenter on Newsnight Review.

On the BBC comedy series Time Trumpet she featured in a segment called 'Honey, I Shrunk Martha Kearney' (a fictional revamped Newsnight), in which Jeremy Paxman interviews her, a third of her normal height. In August and September 2006, she presented a series on Radio 4, called The Idea of a University, looking at the history of universities in the United Kingdom. This programme was broadcast on Thursdays on Radio 4.

Martha Kearney is married to Chris Shaw, journalist and senior programme controller on Five television.

External links

• BBC profile
• Martha Kearney Profile - Official Agent's Website
• "Media: CV" interview, The Independent, April 6, 1998