She graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1976 before gaining a postgraduate certificate in radio, film and television studies from the University of Bristol. Whilst at university in Edinburgh, she had a relationship with then-Rector Gordon Brown. She also co-founded the Edinburgh Festival Fringe newspaper Festival Times with Garfield Kennedy.
In 1978 she began her professional broadcasting career as a producer and presenter at British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Scotland. In February 1999 she was struck by a police van on its way to a 999 call in Clerkenwell, London. She sustained head injuries, and it was almost five years before she returned to broadcasting, in a biographical documentary in which she spoke of her recuperation process and coming to terms with the psychological effects of her injury.
She currently presents an education-focused news programme for the cable channel Teachers" television
She switched to television in 1981 as a presenter and newsreader at STV, then went freelance in 1986, moving on to anchor such national radio and television news programmes as The World at One, Channel 4 News, The World This Week, After Dark and International Question Time and, in 1995, she received the first-ever "Woman in Film and Television" Award.
