Former Newsnight presenter Donald MacCormick has died of a heart attack, aged 70.

He was on Newsnight throughout the 1980s alongside John Tusa and Peter Snow.

He also worked on several other BBC key programmes including Question Time, the Money Programme, Tonight, Newsweek and BBC World.

Mr Tusa paid tribute, saying he was "professional, generous and selfless" and provided "a perfect foil to both Peter and me".

He said: "He was an absolutely marvellous, generous and selfless colleague. He was part of a trio, providing an absolutely solid professional call and was just a perfect foil to both Peter and me," he said.

"He couldn't have been easier to deal with, there were never any arguments... he just did his job in an extremely professional way and was warm, generous and thorough."

Former Newsnight editor Tim Gardam said: "Donald was always entirely focused on ensuring the programme aired with calm authority.

"Whenever he was anchoring Newsnight one knew that whatever the pressure of events behind the screen, none would be evident on screen."

Donald McCormick was born on April 16, 1939, and graduated in English from the University of Glasgow.

He began his working life as a school teacher there.

Donald started out in journalism in 1967 as a television reporter for Grampian, moving to London in 1975 joining the team on Tonight.

In the early 1990s, he returned to independent television, joining London Weekend Television for a lunchtime analysis programme, then to STV for more political output.

More recently he was involved in the conference circuit and with journalism training.

He died of a heart attack on July 12, 2009.