Biographies

Presenter, Look North

Christa Ackroyd has been a journalist for over 30 years, with a career spanning newspapers, radio and television. She joined the BBC in 2001 as co-presenter of the regional news programme Look North and also broadcasts on BBC Radio Leeds.

Born and educated in Bradford, Christa had already decided that she wanted to be a journalist at the tender age of nine. On leaving school she started work at the Halifax Courier where she stayed for four years before moving into radio, first at Pennine Radio, then to Radio Aire in Leeds.

Whilst at Radio Aire she headed up the reporting on the Yorkshire Ripper case, providing bulletins for network radio and working around the clock on the story. Soon after, the station appointed her as the country's first female radio news editor.

After making her name at Radio Aire a telephone call from Yorkshire Television then gave her the opportunity for her next career move and she went on to present the evening news programme, Calendar, for over a decade.

A true "Yorkshire Lass", Christa has never been tempted to move out of Yorkshire and lives in the countryside on the moors. She has three horses, two dogs, two cats, three children and a husband.

"And that's usually the order I feed them in!" she says.