Elizabeth Mary MacKean (30 November 1964 – 18 August 2017) was a British television reporter and presenter. She worked on the BBC's Newsnight programme and was the reporter on an exposé of Sir Jimmy Savile as a paedophile which was controversially cancelled by the BBC in December 2011. The decision to axe the Newsnight investigation became the subject of the Pollard Inquiry. She and colleague Meirion Jones later won a London Press Club Scoop of the Year award for their work on the story.[1] She also won the 2010 Daniel Pearl Award for her investigation of the Trafigura toxic dumping scandal.
MacKean went freelance after leaving the BBC, and reported on the Cyril Smith case for Channel 4's Dispatches series in September 2013.
In 2014, she reported on Russian vigilante gangs entrapping and attacking gay men in the documentary Hunted.[2] Hunted won multiple awards, including the Grierson award for best current affairs documentary, and led to a follow-up, Hunted: Gay and Afraid, in which MacKean challenged American evangelical groups who support anti-gay legislation around the world.
MacKean was named Journalist of the Year by Stonewall in 2014, in November 2015, she was named their Journalist of the Decade.[3]