Sheena McDonald

Sheena Elizabeth McDonald (born 25 July 1954, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland) is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster.

She was a pupil at George Watson's Ladies College, and then read English at the University of Edinburgh from where she graduated in 1976 before gaining a postgraduate certificate in radio, film and television studies from the University of Bristol.

Whilst at university in Edinburgh, she had a relationship with then-Rector Gordon Brown.

She also co-founded the Edinburgh Festival Fringe newspaper Festival Times with Garfield Kennedy.

In 1978 she began her professional broadcasting career as a producer and presenter at BBC Radio Scotland.

She switched to television in 1981 as a presenter, continuity announcer and newsreader at STV, then went freelance in 1986, moving on to anchor such national radio and television news programmes as The World at One, Channel 4 News, 'The World This Week', After Dark and International Question Time and, in 1995, she received the first-ever 'Woman in Film and Television' Award.

She was the daughter of Very Rev William J. G. McDonald, minister of Mayfield church in Edinburgh, and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1989.

He himself was a broadcaster, contributing to Thought for the Day for many years.

The two have been together since 1993.

McDonald's presenting roles have included:

In February 1999 she was struck by a police van on its way to a 999 call in Clerkenwell, London.

She sustained head injuries, and it was almost five years before she returned to television, in a biographical documentary in which she spoke of her recuperation process and coming to terms with the psychological effects of her injury.

She married BBC reporter Allan Little in 2006.

In 2019 she wrote a book Rebuilding Life after Brain Injury: Dreamtalk for a series presenting brain injury survivor stories, describing in detail her injury and the progression of her recovery, with contributions and commentary from her husband Allan Little and her rehabilitation specialist Gail Robinson.