Andrea Catherine Catherwood (born 27 November 1967) is a Northern Irish television presenter and journalist.

Early life

Andrea Catherwood was born and raised in Belfast where her mother, Adrienne McGuill, was an announcer and newsreader at

Ulster Television UTV (formerly Ulster Television, branded on air as ITV1 since 2020) is the ITV (TV network), ITV region covering Northern Ireland, ITV subsidiary and the former on-air name of the free-to-air public broadcast television channel serving the ar ...

, from 1959 to 1969 and also presented '' The Romper Room'' from 1964 to 1969 as Miss Adrienne. Adrienne Catherwood was appointed an MBE in 2004 for her work with the charity

Action Medical Research Action Medical Research, previously The National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, is a major British medical research charity, founded in 1952, that funds research to prevent and treat disease and disability in babies and children.

. Andrea was educated at Strathearn School in Belfast. Her broadcasting career began aged 16 when she joined the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in Belfast as a co-presenter of a youth current affairs programme, for which she won

BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. BBC Northern Ireland is one of the four BB ...

's Young Presenter of the Year award. The following year she co-presented the youth current affairs programme ''Up Front''. Aged 18, Catherwood made a documentary for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

about the 18 years of troubles in Northern Ireland.

Journalism career

Following an honours degree in law from the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

, in 1990 Catherwood joined

, where she spent three years as a news and features reporter. In 1993 she joined

NBC Asia National Geographic (Nat Geo Asia, formerly NBC Asia and National Geographic Channel and also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is a pan-Asian subscription television channel owned by Disney Networks Group Asia ...

in Hong Kong as a news reporter, covering the handover of Hong Kong to China and the 1997 stock-market turmoil. She travelled extensively throughout Asia, and in

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

interviewed opposition leader

Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi (born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She served as State Counsellor of Myanmar and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Myanmar), Ministe ...

. She joined ITN in April 1998 starting as newscaster and senior reporter for ITV News, presenting the '' ITV Morning News'' and providing special reports for '' News at Ten''. She then became medical correspondent for

ITV News ITV News is the branding of news programmes on the British news television channel of ITV (TV network), ITV. ITV has a long tradition of television news. ITN, Independent Television News (ITN) was founded to provide news bulletins for the netwo ...

. Having joined Five News in 2000 as a main news presenter, she moved back to ITV in 2001. In November 2001 she was the first British journalist into

Mazari Sharif Mazar-i-Sharīf ( ; Dari and ), also known as Mazar-e Sharīf or simply Mazar, is the fifth-largest city in Afghanistan by population, with the estimates varying from 500,000-680,000. It is the capital of Balkh province and is linked by highways ...

after the

Northern Alliance The Northern Alliance ( ''Da Šumāl E'tilāf'' or ''Ettehād Šumāl''), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( ''Jabha-ye Muttahid-e barāye Afğānistān''), was a military alliance of groups that op ...

captured the city from

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

forces. She produced a number of reports, which received wide coverage in the British press. Catherwood was reporting from inside the prison at the beginning of the Taliban prisoners uprising when one exploded a concealed grenade that killed five people. Catherwood was injured in the knee by shrapnel. In 2003, she was promoted and made the main anchor of the '' ITV Weekend News'', plus a relief presenter on the ''

ITV Lunchtime News The ''ITV Lunchtime News'' is the afternoon news programme produced by ITN on the British television network ITV. It airs Monday to Friday from 1:30pm, covering British national and international news stories and is presented by Nina Hossain. ...

'' and ''

ITV Evening News The ''ITV Evening News'' is the evening news programme produced by ITN on the British television network ITV. It airs Monday to Friday from 6:30pm usually until 7.30pm (since March 2022) though the finishing time of the bulletin can occasiona ...

''. Catherwood left ITV News in September 2006, to front '' The Sunday Edition'', ITV's new political show with

Andrew Rawnsley Andrew Nicholas James Rawnsley (born 5 January 1962) is a British political journalist and broadcaster. A columnist and chief political commentator for ''The Observer'', he has written two books on New Labour. Early life Rawnsley was born in Le ...

. However, this was quietly dropped in November 2007. In 2006, she was scheduled to appear on the celebrity special of '' The X Factor: Battle of the Stars'' and to sing with

James Hewitt James Lifford Hewitt (born 30 April 1958) is a retired cavalry officer in the British Army. He came to public attention in the mid-1990s after he disclosed an affair with Diana, Princess of Wales, while she was still married to then- Prince C ...

but ITV management refused to give her permission to appear on the show. In 2007, she was a contestant on the ITV series '' Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon''. In July 2009, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Moon landings,

ITN Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based media production and broadcast journalism company. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York City, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washin ...

produced five special 10-minute programmes for ITV titled ''Mission to the Moon – News from 1969''. Catherwood, a former ITN newscaster and correspondent, reported for these specials. The first aired at 22:35 on ITV on Wednesday 15 July and ran the following Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday. In October 2009 Catherwood joined

Bloomberg Television Bloomberg Television (on-air as Bloomberg) is an American-based pay television network focusing on business and capital market programming, owned by diversified information and media private company Bloomberg L.P. It is distributed globally, re ...

as part of the news station's relaunch, where she anchored ''Briefing'', ''The Pulse'', and ''Last Word''. She left in March 2012. Catherwood is now a weekly contributor to '' This Morning'' on ITV, as well as writing for

The Mail on Sunday ''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. Founded in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first published i ...

. Over the past three years she has been a presenter on various Radio 4 programmes. She presented

's ''

Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History The first BBC programme for women was the programme cal ...

'', as well as You and Yours, and is a regular stand-in presenter of ''

The Media Show ''The Media Show'' is a weekly United Kingdom, British current affairs (news format), current affairs radio programme and podcast on BBC Radio 4 which examines the current state of the Mass media, media. First broadcast on 1 October 2008, it is p ...

'' on Radio 4. In September 2017, she appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme ''Great Lives'', nominating

Constance Markievicz Constance Georgine Markievicz ( ; ' Gore-Booth; 4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), also known as Countess Markievicz and Madame Markievicz, was an Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, and socialist who was the first woman ...

for a great life. As of December 2020 she still presented ''Woman's Hour'' occasionally; however her future participation was uncertain. In October 2022, Catherwood began presenting ''

Feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handle ...

'' on

; the programme holds the BBC to account by allowing the radio listeners to express their opinions.

Personal life

Catherwood married lawyer Graham Smith on 3 July 2002 at a private family ceremony in

Kenmare Kenmare () is a small town in the south of County Kerry, Ireland. The name Kenmare is the anglicised form of ''Ceann Mara'', meaning "head of the sea", referring to the head of Kenmare Bay. It is also a townland and civil parish. Location Ken ...

, in the south-west of

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The couple have three children.

References

External links

*
Andrea Catherwood's TwitterOfficial website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Catherwood, Andrea 1967 births Living people Television journalists from Northern Ireland ITN newsreaders and journalists 5 News presenters and reporters Television personalities from Belfast People educated at Strathearn School 20th-century women journalists from Northern Ireland 21st-century women journalists from Northern Ireland 20th-century journalists from Northern Ireland 21st-century journalists from Northern Ireland