Nicholas Witchell
| Nicholas Witchell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Nicholas Newton Henshall Witchell 23 September 1953 Cosford, Shropshire, England |
| Occupation | BBC Journalist |
| Partner(s) | Maria Staples |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | BBC Profile |
Nicholas Newton Henshall Witchell (born 23 September 1953) is an English journalist. He is a newscaster and diplomatic and royal correspondent for BBC News.
Witchell was born in Shropshire. He was educated at Epsom College, a British public school in Surrey, and at Leeds University, where he read Law and edited the Leeds Student newspaper. In 1974 Terence Dalton Limited published Witchell's book The Loch Ness Story. The book provides a history of the alleged sightings of the Loch Ness Monster and includes a chapter entitled 'The "Monster" on Land'. He has worked for the BBC since 1976.
Witchell, along with Sue Lawley, became the first newsreader of the BBC Six O'Clock News when the programme was launched on 3 September 1984 (replacing the early evening news magazine Sixty Minutes). In 1988, the Six O'Clock News studio was invaded during a live broadcast by a group of women protesting against Britain's Section 28 (which prevented councils from promoting homosexuality). Witchell grappled with the protesters and is said to have sat on one woman, provoking the ambiguous frontpage headline in the Daily Mirror, "Beeb man sits on lesbian". During the 1989 journalist strike, Witchell was one of the few newsreaders to turn up to work. He was branded a "scab" for this action.
In 1989 he moved from the evening to the breakfast news slot, where he remained for five years. During the 1991 Gulf War he was a volunteer presenter on the BBC Radio 4 News FM service.
He was the first reporter to relay the news of the 1979 death of Lord Mountbatten, the Lockerbie disaster, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
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