Michael McCarthy (born in Birkenhead, Wirral, England) is a British environmentalist, naturalist, newspaper journalist, newspaper

columnist A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Column (newspaper), Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the fo ...

, and author. He was born the son of John and Norah McCarthy. He studied Modern Languages at the University of Liverpool. He worked as a journalist first on the '' Bolton Evening News'' and then on the '' Daily Mirror''. After 17 years in local and

tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid, a biplane aircraft * ''Ta ...

journalism, he moved first to '' The Times'', then to '' The Independent on Sunday'', and then to '' The Independent''; he worked 27 years for those

broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...

newspapers. He was Environment Editor of ''The Independent'' until 2013, and is its Environment Columnist. He was the driving force behind a campaign by ''The Independent'' to identify the reasons for the decline of the British urban

House sparrow The house sparrow (''Passer domesticus'') is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. It is a small bird that has a typical length of and a mass of . Females and young birds are coloured pale brown and grey, a ...

; but the £5,000 prize offered by that newspaper has not been awarded.

Awards

* 1991, 2003, 2006Environment Journalist of the Year,

The British Environment and Media Awards The British Environment and Media Awards, or BEMAs, were created by Media Natura, and are awarded by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The awards are open to any professional article, programme, website or campaign, written, produced or undertaken in ...

* 2001Specialist Writer of the Year, British Press Awards * 2007Medal of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), for outstanding services to conservation * 2010

Silver Medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...

of the Zoological Society of London * 2011 Dilys Breese Medal of the

British Trust for Ornithology The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is an organisation founded in 1932 for the study of birds in the British Isles. The Prince of Wales has been patron since October 2020. History Beginnings In 1931 Max Nicholson wrote: In the United State ...

(BTO)

Publications

* *

References

External links

Michael McCarthy on Twitter
Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Birkenhead Alumni of the University of Liverpool The Independent people The Times journalists Daily Mirror people {{UK-journalist-stub