Maxine Mawhinney (born 18 September 1957) is a former newsreader on

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, 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 ...

's 24-hour rolling

news channel News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or telev ...

Biography

Born in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, Mawhinney was educated at Regent House School,

Newtownards Newtownards (; ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtow ...

. She trained as a newspaper journalist in Northern Ireland, then joined

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...

and Radio in Belfast, before moving to

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 ...

and then

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 ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. She joined

Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network and news organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of ...

at its launch in 1988, as Ireland correspondent, remaining for two years before going to Tokyo as News Editor for Asia for Reuters Television. After two years in Asia, she spent a year in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, Germany, for Reuters Television, before being appointed

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

Correspondent for

GMTV GMTV (an initialism for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ''ITV Breakfast, ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited'', was the name of the national ITV (TV network), ITV breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the Uni ...

at its launch in 1992. Mawhinney returned to London in 1996, joining the BBC's international news channel

BBC World BBC News is an international English-language pay television channel owned by BBC Global News Ltd. – a subsidiary of BBC Studios – and operated by the BBC News division of the BBC. The network carries news bulletins, documentaries, an ...

. She was the duty presenter in the early hours of 31 August 1997, when news broke of the fatal car crash of Diana, Princess of Wales. She can be seen in this role in the 2006 feature film '' The Queen''. In November 1997, she joined the

BBC News Channel The BBC News channel is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel owned and operated by the BBC. The channel is based at and broadcasts from Broadcasting House in the West End of London from which it is anchored during ...

(then known as ''BBC News 24'') as one of the launch presenters. Mawhinney presented in various timeslots on the channel, including a period in the afternoon slot alongside Matthew Amroliwala and Chris Eakin, before being assigned to Sunday afternoons in April 2006. She took on the Saturday and Monday morning slots and the Friday afternoon slot, as well as regularly covering other shifts on the channel. She also presented ''

BBC Breakfast ''BBC Breakfast'' is a British television breakfast news programme, produced by BBC News and broadcast on BBC One every morning from 6:00am. It is also broadcast on the UK feed of BBC News channel on weekends. The simulcast is presented live, ...

'' and the ''BBC One O'Clock News'' (later ''

BBC News at One The ''BBC News at One'' is the BBC's afternoon news programme on British television channels BBC One and the BBC News channel with British Sign Language Interpretation, broadcast weekdays at 1:00pm and produced by BBC News. The programme runs fo ...

''). Later, she appeared on ''News at One'' weekend lunchtime bulletins as part of her weekend shifts. Mawhinney is married to John Clare and has two daughters from her first marriage. She lives in Stanley Pontlarge,

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

. She had two younger sisters, Alexa and Lorraine, who died from

skin cancer Skin cancers are cancers that arise from the Human skin, skin. They are due to the development of abnormal cells (biology), cells that have the ability to invade or metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. It occurs when skin cells grow ...

. She was diagnosed with

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

in November 2013; she underwent surgery, drug therapy and

radiotherapy Radiation therapy or radiotherapy (RT, RTx, or XRT) is a treatment using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer therapy to either kill or control the growth of malignant cells. It is normally delivered by a linear particle ...

, and was back in the studio in March 2014. She left the BBC in April 2017, presenting her last BBC News Channel shift on 10 April.

References

External links

*
''BBC News'' profile
1957 births Living people BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC World News ITN newsreaders and journalists People educated at Regent House Grammar School Reuters people Sky News newsreaders and journalists Television personalities from Belfast UTV (TV channel) people {{BBC-tv-bio-stub