McDonald began his career working as a print and broadcast journalist for Naparima College's Blue Circle Network.
McDonald was promoted in 1992 as the sole presenter of News at Ten and became a well-known face on British television screens.
Trevor McDonald was born to a working-class family on 16 August 1939 in San Fernando, Trinidad, an island in the West Indies that was a British colony at the time.
[1][2][3] He is the son of Josephine and Lawson McDonald, a self-taught engineer from Grenada who moved to Trinidad to work on an oil refinery.
[7] He grew up in a poor household in the fishing village of St. Margaret in the south of Trinidad,[3][8][9] and is the oldest of four children in his family.
[4] McDonald did not receive much of an education at school,[4][10] going against his parent's wishes,[1] but they ensured his English was of high standard by learning the speech of the announcers working at the BBC World Service.
[3][11] His father supplemented the small income by mending shoes and keeping pigs in his spare time to fund the family's education.
[5][12] Although his mother wanted him to become a lawyer,[8] he began working in broadcasting through Naparima College's Blue Circle Network in San Fernando.
[13] In 1969, McDonald moved to London and was employed by the BBC World Service as a producer at Bush House, but still broadcast to the Caribbean.
[8][10] This came after Ryan suggested that McDonald "be like Sandy Gall" and travel the world as a reporter, combining that role with reading the news on occasion.
[1] McDonald remained with ITN when News at Ten was axed by ITV on 5 March 1999 in order to broadcast more films and drama.
[28]On 31 October 2007, ITV announced that, early in 2008, McDonald would come out of retirement to present the relaunched News at Ten together with Etchingham after being asked.
[31][32] It was announced on 30 October 2008 that McDonald would step down from News at Ten once the 2008 United States presidential election was over, to be replaced by Mark Austin.
[55][56] McDonald presented The Killing of PC Harper: A Wife's Story on 17 March 2022,[57] and Pride of Britain: A Windrush Special in October 2023.
Calypso about Caribbean music,[61] and Across the White Line on BBC Radio 5 Live about Black British football players throughout history.
[65] McDonald narrated the 2000 Radio 2 documentary The Forgotten Volunteers on the Asian and black soldiers who helped Britain in both world wars.
[6] McDonald performed live in Hyde Park in June 1996 with the Who, as the newsreader in the group's staging of their rock opera, Quadrophenia.
[84] He presented the four-part Sunday evening radio series Sir Trevor McDonald's Headliners on Classic FM in mid-2020.
[85] In 2021, McDonald narrated the WaterAid animated advertisement about a young girl from Madagascar and drew attention to global water shortages.
[87] That same year, McDonald appeared as the titular character in E4's revival of GamesMaster,[88] and presented a week of The Classic FM Concert in March 2022.
[91] In June 2024, The Guardian reported that McDonald had been featured in an advertisement to promote the planned UK government sale of shares in NatWest to the public (which had been announced in the March budget).