Anna Ford
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Image:Af (03).JPG.jpg Anna Ford (born 2 October 1943) is a British television presenter. She has been presenting BBC news output since 1989, and since 1999 has fronted the One O'Clock News slot.
Ford studied Economics at the Victoria University of Manchester and was president of the students' union there in the academic year beginning 1966. On 17 December 2001 she was installed as its Chancellor. When the Victoria University of Manchester merged with UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) on 1 October 2004 to create the new University of Manchester, she became Co-Chancellor along with Sir Terry Leahy (the former Chancellor of UMIST).
Ford began working for television in 1974 on the news desk for Granada Television, before joining the BBC in 1976. She worked on Tomorrow's World in 1977, for ITN in 1978 and then helped launch TV-am in 1981. After the re-launch and perceived "dumbing-down" of the station after it was forced to abandon its original high-brow "mission to explain", she was involved in a notable incident in which she threw her wine over Jonathan Aitken to express her outrage, seemingly over his involvement in the unwelcome transformation. In 1983 her duet with Noddy Holder, a cover version of the Shakin' Stevens hit "You Drive Me Crazy", reached number 37 in the UK pop charts. She rejoined the BBC in 1986 and joined the Six O'Clock News team in 1989 and was a presenter of the radio Today programme. In December 2005 she was a guest presenter of Have I Got News For You.
She briefly became the subject rather than the reader of news stories in August 2001, when she lost a high profile court case. She claimed unsuccessfully that photographs of her in a bikini taken by a press photographer in Majorca with a powerful zoom lens and published in the British media constituted an invasion of her privacy.
In February 2003 the newsreader experienced one of her more challenging broadcasts when she lost her voice live on-air. She had to resort to drinking water on air, and the decision in the end had to be taken to replace Ford live on air with a back-up newsreader, Sophie Raworth.
On October 30, 2005, Ford announced her plans to retire from broadcasting in April 2006 in order to pursue other interests while she "still has the interest and energy." [1]