Rory MacPherson, ITN diplomatic correspondent and newsreader in the 1970s – obituary He cut an authoritative figure on screen, having come from a career as a diplomat that included service during the Cuban missile crisis Rory MacPherson Rory MacPherson, who has died aged 85, was diplomatic correspondent and a newscaster for ITN during its heyday in the 1970s. Before the arrival of Anna Ford in 1978, Richard Ingrams lamented in The Spectator: “Like the member of some agreeable old club which has decided finally to let women in, I have been savouring the last days of the all-male ITN … There may be only a few days left in which to enjoy the last news bulletins not to be read out by high-pitched women, but by nice quietly-spoken, soothing gentlemen with the right sort of accents like Reggie Bosanquet, Sandy Gall and Rory MacPherson.”