Mark Austin is a journalist and broadcaster best known as the former co-newscaster for the ITV Evening News, ITV News at Ten and currently the presenter of Sky News live from the war in Ukraine.
Journalists and newscasters have been praised since the beginning of the ongoing conflict for their bravery and commitment to telling the story accurately, despite an increasingly dangerous situation.
And, with Sky News' Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsey and his team being shot at by Russian operatives in recent days, the situation has never been more dangerous for newscasters like Mark who are trying to do their jobs under extreme circumstances.
It's clear from his daily Tweets that he's right in the heart of the conflict, recently fleeing Kyiv to a safer location he said on March 7: "Good morning from Ukraine. Cold and specks of snow . Dark days now . We will not invade, they have. We will not target civilians, they are. We will stop firing to let people out. They don’t. Day 12 of this hell."
It's made us wonder, who has Mark left behind at home in the UK. And what do we know about him?
Is he married and does he have children?
Mark is married to Catherine Austin who works as an A&E doctor. The pair live in Surrey and have three children: Beatrice, Jack and Madeleine.
Daughter Maddy's eating disorder
In 2012 Mark's daughter Maddy began to suffer with anorexia and, in 2017, the father and daughter together made a documentary for Channel 4 called Wasting Away: The Truth About Anorexia. Mark revealed in the documentary how his family was plunged into 'hell' when his eldest daughter Maddy suddenly stopped eating. She was a successful runner and athlete at the time and who had just competed Olympic trials so her dad, Mark, didn't initially think much of it when her weight first began to drop.
In his 2018 memoir, And Thank You for Watching, he writes: "I didn’t understand it at first — I thought it was crass, insensitive, selfish and pathetic of Maddy. Until I began to understand. And I deliberately say ‘began’ to understand, because even now, several years on, I don’t properly understand. Not fully. Not really. Maddy seemed hellbent on self-destruction and it broke my heart. The daughter I thought I knew had become remote, and filled with cunning. She would do anything to avoid eating. She seemed possessed by something she could not control."
In his memoir Mark also recalls how his daughter would sometimes go out at night, walking for hours to make sure she burned off every calorie she could. The news presenter admits he couldn't understand why she wouldn't just eat and says: "As a parent, you have to make a decision, and I made the wrong one. I decided to go on the attack. I told her she was being ridiculous. I told her to get a grip and grow up. And I told her to ‘just bloody well eat, for Christ’s sake. I told her she was going to kill herself and then I said it: ‘And if you really want to starve yourself to death, just get on with it.’ Was I really saying that to the daughter I loved? And here’s the worst thing: for one ghastly split second, I think I actually meant it."
He continues: "I wanted the whole dreadful situation just to go away. She didn’t respond at all, which only made things worse. She was painfully thin, constantly pale and so cold all the time. Her arms and legs became stick-like, her face gaunt, her eyes hollow. Her skin was blistering, her bones were increasingly brittle. We were watching her slowly die and we could do nothing about it."
Fortunately with treatment, Maddy made a recovery to full health.
A well-travelled career
Mark has covered many global events such as the Iraq War, the US Elections, the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. His reporting of the Mozambique floods in 2000 received many awards including an International Emmy award as well as a Gold Nymph at the 2000 Television Festival of Monte Carlo.
Being called to overseas for reporting duties is something Mark is familiar with. Over his career he's been called upon to report and anchor programmes from the United States, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Spain, France, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and around the British Isles.
