Last updated February 2007
Category: News
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Nicholas Witchell is the BBC's Royal and Diplomatic Correspondent.
He first joined the BBC as a graduate news trainee in 1976 after completing a
law degree at Leeds University.
Between 1979 and 1982 Nicholas was a BBC reporter in Northern Ireland, working
on major stories such as the assassination of Earl Mountbatten and the IRA
hunger strikes.
In 1982 he became a network news reporter for BBC Television News in London.
He was heavily involved in the coverage of the Falklands conflict and also made
many trips to Beirut and the Lebanon to report on the wars there in the early
and mid-Eighties.
He covered Margaret Thatcher's 1983 General Election campaign before returning
to Belfast to become the BBC's Ireland Correspondent.
In September 1984 he was, with Sue Lawley, one of the founding presenters of
BBC Television's Six O'Clock News.
The programme itself made the news one night in 1988 when it was "invaded" by a
group of lesbian protestors and was broadcast while Nicholas sat on one of
them.
From 1989 to 1994 he was the main presenter of the re-launched Breakfast News.
It was a time of huge international change and he often presented the programme
live from the scene of major news stories, for example, Moscow, Berlin, South
Africa and Hong Kong.
In 1994 he returned to front-line reporting for the BBC, first for Panorama and
then as a BBC Diplomatic Correspondent, a role which took him frequently to
Bosnia and around the world, travelling with successive British Foreign
Secretaries.
In the early hours of 31 August 1997 Nicholas Witchell was the first journalist
to broadcast the confirmed news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Six days later he provided live BBC Radio commentary from outside Westminster
Abbey at the Princess' funeral.
In 1998 he became Royal and Diplomatic Corresondent for BBC News.
Although his
main responsibility is to report on the British Royal Family, he has continued
to cover other major stories such as the Hutton Inquiry and Tony Blair's campaign
during the 2005 General Election.
He also spends regular periods reporting from
Baghdad.
He has also been the BBC Radio commentator at national or State occasions, such
as the Ceremony of Remembrance at the Cenotaph (receiving a Radio Academy award
in 2001); the memorial services for the victims of the September 11 attacks at
St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey; and the Service of Thanksgiving for
the Golden Jubilee of the Queen.
He was also the BBC Radio commentator at a special remembrance service at
Trinity Church, New York on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Nicholas Witchell is a Governor of Queen Elizabeth's Foundation, a Patron of
The Queen Alexandra Hospital Home, an Officer of the Order of St John and a
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
He was born in Shropshire in September 1953. He lives in central London and
has two daughters.
