Name Sarah Smith Role News reporter | Parents John Smith Education University of Glasgow | |
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Books Schemes of Work: Long-term Planning, Units of Work: Medium Term Planning Profiles | ||
Sarah Smith (born 1968) is a Scottish radio and television news reporter with the BBC. She holds the post of Scotland Editor, having joined the BBC in Spring 2014 for the run-up to the Scottish Independence Referendum on 18 September 2014. Smith has covered stories ranging from the United States presidential elections and the Madrid train bombings (for which Channel 4 News won an International Emmy in 2004), to the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith and an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein's defence lawyer.
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Early life
Smith was born in Edinburgh in 1968. She attended school in the city and then graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1989 with a Master of Arts.
Career
Smith began her journalistic career as a graduate trainee with BBC Scotland. She spent a year living and working in Belfast for BBC Northern Ireland, during which time she was held at gunpoint by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in its West Belfast headquarters.
In 1991, Smith moved to London as an assistant producer with BBC Youth Programmes, working on Rough Guide, Rapido and Reportage. Two years later she moved to news and current affairs, first as assistant producer with the Public Eye and Here & Now programmes. She then worked as a producer for the BBC on programmes as diverse as Newsnight, Public Eye and Rough Guides.
On 5 News she was a reporter for two years. Smith was then the first newsreader on More4 News on Channel 4's digital television sister channel More4.
She was Channel 4 News's Washington correspondent before moving to the post of Business correspondent in the summer of 2011.
She presented BBC Two's Scottish current affairs programme, Scotland 2014, alongside sports presenter Jonathan Sutherland. The programme first aired on 27 May 2014.
She was appointed the BBC's first Scotland Editor in November 2015, to cover Scottish news for a UK audience.
In August 2017, it was announced that Smith is to succeed Andrew Neil as the presenter of the Sunday Politics programme on BBC One beginning in mid-September.
Family
She is the eldest daughter of the former leader of the Labour Party John Smith, and of Elizabeth Smith, Baroness Smith of Gilmorehill. The John Smith Memorial Trust, on whose Advisory Council she sits, lists her as The Hon. Sarah Smith; her mother's status as a Baroness allows her the right to use "the Honourable" before her forename. Smith married Simon Conway, an author and co-chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition, on the island of Iona, where her father is buried, on 22 September 2007. The service was led by Rev. Douglas Alexander, father of former Scottish Labour Party leader Wendy Alexander. In 2014, she returned to live in Edinburgh.