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.

She has been Political Editor on the BBC's Newsnight (as well as lead presenter of semi-independent cultural affairs programme Newsnight Review) since 2000 and is also a presenter on BBC Radio 4's long-running Woman's Hour. Kearney has been an occasional presenter of the Today programme also. She was a candidate to succeed Andrew Marr as BBC Political Editor in 2005 but lost out to Nick Robinson.

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

On the BBC comedy series Time Trumpet she featured in a segment called 'Honey, I Shrunk Martha Kearney' (a revamped Newsnight), in which Jeremy Paxman interviews her, a third of her normal height.[1]In August and September 2006, she presented a series on Radio Four, called "The Idea of a University", looking at the history of universities in the United Kingdom. This programme was broadcast on Thursdays on Radio Four.

External links

• BBC profile
• "Media: CV" interview, The Independent, April 6, 1998