John Simpson CBE

John Simpson is the World Affairs Editor for the BBC, the senior member of a team of London-based foreign and specialist correspondents.  He joined the BBC in 1966 as a trainee sub-editor in Radio News and in a career spanning over 40 years has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most experienced and authoritative journalists.

John received a CBE in the Gulf War Honours (1991) and is one of only two people to have been twice named the Royal Television Society’s Journalist of the Year (1991 and 2000). Amongst his other awards have been three BAFTAs, a Golden Nymph Award for his reporting of Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran (1979), a Peabody Trust Award for news (1999), a special jury’s award at the Bayeux War Correspondents Awards (2002) and most recently an International Emmy Award for News Coverage for his report on the fall of Kabul for BBC’s Ten O’Clock News (2002), GQ Magazine Author of the Year (2003) and in 2004 John received the award from Pan MacMillan for the Audio Book of the Year for The Wars Against Saddam (2004). In September 1999, Magdalene College awarded John an honorary fellowship and, in November 2005, he was installed as Chancellor of Roehampton University.