- Mary Ann Sieghart
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Mary Ann Sieghart (born 6 August 1961) is a former assistant editor of The Times, where she wrote columns about politics, social affairs and life generally. She now writes a weekly political column in The Independent and presents Profile and Beyond Westminster on Radio 4. She is also chair of the Social Market Foundation, a non-executive director of Henderson Smaller Companies Investment Trust and sits on the Council of Tate Modern.
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Biography
Sieghart was born in 1961, the daughter of Paul Sieghart, a human rights lawyer, campaigner, broadcaster and author, and Felicity Ann Sieghart, chairman of the National Association for Gifted Children, magistrate and later managing director of the Aldeburgh Cinema. She attended both state and private schools and graduated with a first-class degree in PPE from Wadham College, Oxford. While she was there, she worked for The Daily Telegraph in her vacations.
Health
Suffering from the medical condition prosopagnosia (face blindness), she (and several members of her family) struggle to recognise faces.[1]
Career
After Oxford, Sieghart joined The Financial Times, where she became Eurobond Correspondent and then a Lex columnist. She spent a summer in 1984 working for The Washington Post, as the Laurence Stern Fellow. From the FT, she was recruited to be City Editor of Today newspaper at its launch in 1986. When it was taken over by Tiny Rowland, she moved to The Economist to be Political Correspondent. She also presented The World This Week on Channel 4.
In 1988, she joined The Times, as editor of the comment pages. During her time there, she was also Arts Editor, Chief Political leader-writer and acting editor of the paper on Sundays. In 1995, she chaired the revival of The Brains Trust on BBC2.
Sieghart is a regular broadcaster. She currently presents Profile and Beyond Westminster on Radio 4 and presented Newshour on the BBC World Service from 2008 to 2010. She has often appeared on programmes such as Question Time, Any Questions, Newsnight, Today, The World Tonight and Woman's Hour. She was a regular co-presenter of Start the Week during the time Melvyn Bragg was the programme's main presenter and has been a guest presenter of The Week in Westminster and Dispatch Box.
Criticism
In 2003, Bill Hagerty, editor of the British Journalism Review, described Sieghart as "very talented" but criticised her assumption that broadsheet journalism in newspapers like The Times was intrinsically better or more effective than tabloid journalism.[2]
Sieghart has been regularly mocked in the satirical magazine Private Eye as 'Mary Ann Bighead'. In particular, her references to her daughters are satirised as 'Brainella' and 'Intelligencia'.[3][4]
Other activities
Sieghart is chair of the Social Market Foundation, a Non-Executive Director of Henderson Smaller Companies Investment Trust, a Member of the Council of Tate Modern and a trustee of the Radcliffe Trust. She has served as a trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund and National Heritage Memorial Fund, vice-chair of the North Fulham New Deal for Communities, steering committee member of the No Campaign and New Europe, member of the Advisory Board of the Social Studies Faculty at Oxford University and various other voluntary posts.
References
- ^ Kelly Strange "Everyone looks the same to me", Mirror.co.uk website, 9 November 2007. Retrieved on 15 April 2008.
- ^ Bill Hagerty "Uphill fight for rolling news", Press Gazette website, 11 April 2003. Retrieved on 09 August 2008.
- ^ The Private Eye Annual 2004. Private Eye Productions Ltd. 2004. ISBN 1901784347.
- ^ The Private Eye Annual 2006. Private Eye Productions Ltd. 2004. ISBN 1901784436.
External links
Categories:- 1961 births
- Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford
- British journalists
- Living people
- The Times people
- People with prosopagnosia
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