Life and Career
Etchingham was born and raised in Leicester, where both her parents were teachers. She was educated at the city's English Martyrs Catholic School, then attended Newnham College at the University of Cambridge where she gained a BA (Honours) degree in English. She got her first job in journalism with BBC Radio Leicester whilst still at school.
While reading English at Cambridge, she co-presented BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's student programme "On the Edge", produced by Ian Peacock.
Etchingham joined the BBC as a graduate trainee journalist. Working at BBC Midlands, she became a presenter on Midlands Today, but soon moved on to present national programmes after moving to London. Her credits at the BBC include BBC's Breakfast News, Newsround (where she beat 1,000 other competitors to the job in 1994) and the corporation's long running Holiday programme.
Etchingham joined Sky News in 2002, where she hosted a number of shows for the channel, including Sky News Today. She was also an occasional presenter on Five News after Sky took over as news provider for Five in January 2005.
On 29 October 2007, during a speech by David Cameron, Etchingham's microphone was left open and an aside was accidentally broadcast during live coverage of the Conservative leader's address. Speaking on the issue of immigration, Mr Cameron said: "Let me outline the action that a Conservative government would take. As we have seen, some of the increase in population size results from natural change - birth rates, death rates. Here our policy should be obvious...." At this point, Etchingham was clearly heard to say: "Extermination." Sky News said afterwards that her comment was "regrettable".
On 31 October 2007, ITV confirmed that in January 2008, Etchingham would move to present the relaunched News at Ten with Sir Trevor McDonald. The programme returned on 14 January.
In June 2009, it was reported in the media that the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, had stopped a plane from flying out of Pakistan after he heard Etchingham was running late after an interview between the two.
In October 2009, it was announced that Etchingham would present a relaunched Tonight programme from early 2010 - with the show airing once a week on Thursday nights.
Etchingham was voted "Presenter of the Year" at the Royal Television Society journalism Awards in February 2010. She is the first woman ever to win the award.
In April 2011, Etchingham co-hosted ITV's coverage of the Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton with Phillip Schofield. It was announced in March 2012 that she and Schofield would present the broadcaster's coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June.
Read more about this topic: Julie Etchingham
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