JOHN SIMPSON'S WORLD
BIOGRAPHY
BBC World Affairs Editor, John Simpson CBE is a journalist, broadcaster and accomplished author. One of the most respected foreign correspondents in the world, John is an inveterate traveller with an instinct for being at the right place at the right time.
John has reported from 140 countries and interviewed over 200 world leaders, including Barack Obama, Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Putin, Margaret Thatcher and every British prime minister since Harold Wilson. He has spent time with and interviewed many notables over the years, such as Indira Gandhi, the Emperor Bokassa, Colonel Gadaffi, Bashir al-Asad, Nelson Mandela, and Robert Mugabe. He witnessed the execution of Saddam Hussein after the Second Gulf War and reported on Gadaffi’s demise and the aftermath of his death in Libya. He was on the Ayatollah Khomeini’s plane from Paris to Tehran during the Iranian Revolution. He was at the forefront of the BBC’s reporting during the First Gulf War which revolutionised the way in which people watch news to this day.
John is a specialist in many foreign regions, among them China, Russia, the Middle-East and Central Asia, as well as Europe and Africa, Argentina, Peru and Brazil.
John has received many prestigious awards, including the Royal Television Society’s Journalist of the Year (twice), three BAFTAs, an Emmy, Monte-Carlo TV Festival’s Golden Nymph, and the Bayeux award for war reporting. John is a Freeman of the City of London and president of The Chelsea Society.
Many universities have awarded him honorary doctorates. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and has written 15 books including his memoir "A Mad World, My Masters" , and his latest book, a novel, "Moscow, Midnight" was released last year.
He takes particular pleasure in writing his column for British Airways’ magazine, Highlife, which he has done for over twenty years.
