Gordon Brewer is a Scottish news and

current affairs Current affairs may refer to: News * Current Affairs (magazine), ''Current Affairs'' (magazine) a bimonthly magazine of culture and politics. * Current affairs (news format): a genre of broadcast journalism * Current Affairs, former name for Behi ...

broadcaster, who worked for

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: ''BBC Alba'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. It is one of the four BBC national regions, together with the BBC English Regions, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Ireland. I ...

. He presented the flagship ''

Newsnight Scotland ''Newsnight Scotland'' is a current affairs television programme, broadcast by BBC Scotland from BBC Pacific Quay in Glasgow as an opt out of the main London-based ''Newsnight'' programme. It was broadcast at 11pm from Mondays to Thursdays, rep ...

'' programme from 1999.

Early Life

He was educated

St Modan's High School St Modan's Roman Catholic High School is an S1-S6 Catholic high school in Stirling, Scotland. History In September 1933, St Modan's High School was officially opened by Archbishop McDonald of St Andrew's and Edinburgh. It was located in Barnsda ...

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

, followed by the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, where he studied

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and

English Literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...

Life and career

Brewer began his career in journalism at ''

The Shetland Times ''The Shetland Times'' is a weekly newspaper in Shetland, published on Fridays and based in Lerwick, the main town in the Shetland Islands Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Sco ...

'' in 1980 and in 1983 he moved to the ''

Sunday Standard ''The Sunday Standard'' was an English-language weekly newspaper in Sri Lanka published by Standard Newspapers (Private) Limited, part of Communication and Business Equipment (Private) Limited (CBE). It was founded in 2006 and published from Colo ...

'' (forerunner of the ''

Sunday Herald The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...

'') as business correspondent. After the ''Standard'' stopped publishing he held a number of jobs in the Scottish press. He was also a member of the Trotskyist group

Socialist Organiser {{unreferenced, date=October 2007 ''Socialist Organiser'' was a weekly socialist newspaper circulated in the Labour Party. The newspaper was founded in 1979 by the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory, later renamed the Socialist Organiser ...

. Brewer joined the BBC in 1988 as Business Correspondent for network TV news and was appointed the BBC's

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Correspondent the following year. During four years in the Far East he mixed news coverage with making films for Newsnight and The Money Programme and Assignment. Despite strenuous attempts to learn Japanese, the nearest he got to fluency was with cab drivers after an evening in the bar. He returned from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

in 1993 to join ''

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...

'' in London, where he was a reporter and later a presenter. In 1999, he became the presenter for Holyrood, and political Scotland. in 2007 the series were merged into The politics show Scotland, and Politics Scotland.

References

External links

Gordon Brewer
s profile on BBC Press Office website Alumni of the University of Edinburgh BBC Scotland newsreaders and journalists Living people People educated at St Modan's High School Scottish television presenters Scottish Trotskyists British Marxists Alliance for Workers' Liberty people Date of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) {{BBC-tv-bio-stub