Stephen John Sackur (born 9 January 1964) is an English journalist who presents HARDtalk, a current affairs interview programme on BBC World News and the BBC News Channel. He is also the main Friday presenter of GMT on BBC World News. For fifteen years he was a BBC foreign correspondent and he is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4 and a number of newspapers and magazines.

Life [edit]

Stephen Sackur was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, England, and studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.^[1] He is married to an Iraqi,^[2] Zina Sabbagh and has three children.^[3]

Career [edit]

Sackur began working at the BBC as a trainee in 1986, and in 1990, he was appointed as one of its foreign affairs correspondents.^[1][3] As a BBC Radio correspondent, Stephen reported on the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and the reunification of Germany in 1990.^[1] During the Gulf War, he was part of a BBC team covering the conflict and spent eight weeks with the British Army.^[4] At the end of the war, he was the first correspondent to report the massacre of the retreating Iraqi army on the road leading out of Kuwait.^[1]

Stephen was based in Cairo, Egypt, between 1992 and 1995 as the BBC's correspondent in the Middle East and he later moved to Jerusalem in 1995 until 1997.^[3] He covered both the death of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the growth of the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.^[1]

Between 1997 and 2002, he was appointed the BBC's correspondent in Washington and covered the Lewinsky scandal. He later covered the U.S. Presidential Election in 2000 and interviewed President George W. Bush.^[1] Stephen went back to Iraq in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein and was the first to report Iraq's mass graves of victims of the regime.^[1] He was also the moderator of BBC's worldwide broadcast of a debate on climate change with a panel of five world leaders from South Africa, the Maldives, Sweden, Australia and Mexico.

In 1991 he wrote On the Basra Road (London Review of Books).

HARDtalk [edit]

In 2004 Stephen Sackur replaced veteran journalist Tim Sebastian as the regular host of the BBC's news programme HARDtalk. He has since interviewed prominent international personalities including former US vice-president Al Gore, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, Shimon Peres, Mahmoud Abbas, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq and a host of other leaders and politicians from around the world. He has also interviewed leading cultural figures including Gore Vidal, Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky, Anwar Ibrahim, Annie Lennox, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and incumbent Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Stephen Sackur was named 'International TV Personality of the Year' by the Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) in November 2010.^[5]

References [edit]

v t e BBC News BBC Television channels BBC Arabic Television BBC News BBC Parliament BBC Persian Television BBC World News Radio stations BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 5 Live Asian Network Reports BBC World Service Online services BBC News Online BBC News programmes Current 60 Seconds The Andrew Marr Show Asia Business Report BBC Breakfast BBC News at One BBC News at Five BBC News at Six BBC News at Ten BBC News Special BBC News Summary BBC Weekend News BBC World News BBC World News America The Bottom Line Broadcasting House Business Daily Business Edition Click Daily Politics Dateline London E24 Fast Track The Film Review Focus on Africa From Our Own Correspondent Global GMT HARDtalk The Health Show Impact Middle East Business Report Newsday (Radio) Newsday (TV) Newshour Newsnight Newswatch Newsround PM Question Time Reporters Show Me the Money Sport Today Talking Movies This Week Today Westminster Hour The World at One World Business Report (Radio) World Business Report (TV) World Have Your Say World News Today The World This Weekend The World Tonight World Update Defunct The 7 O'Clock News Asia Today BBC Nine O'Clock News Breakfast News Breakfast Time Breakfast with Frost Business Breakfast The Hub Have Your Say Nationwide Politics Show Sixty Minutes STORYFix Television Newsreel Tonight Westminster Live Working Lunch World Briefing The World Today People Presenters George Alagiah Matthew Amroliwala Ros Atkins Zeinab Badawi Owen Bennett-Jones Ben Brown Fiona Bruce James Coomarasamy Ellie Crisell Martine Croxall Declan Curry Dan Damon Evan Davis Martine Dennis Peter Dobbie Lyse Doucet Komla Dumor David Eades Chris Eakin Huw Edwards Mike Embley Gavin Esler Lyse Doucet Tim Franks Joanna Gosling Nik Gowing Carrie Gracie Karin Giannone Yalda Hakim Jane Hill Rico Hizon Lucy Hockings Rachael Hodges John Humphrys Mishal Husain Razia Iqbal Katty Kay Martha Kearney Riz Lateef Shaun Ley Sharanjit Leyl Sian Lloyd Deborah Mackenzie Kasia Madera Eddie Mair Emily Maitlis Julian Marshall Maxine Mawhinney Simon McCoy Nuala McGovern James Menendez Louise Minchin Sarah Montague Naga Munchetty Clive Myrie James Naughtie Nicholas Owen Jeremy Paxman Carolyn Quinn Sophie Raworth Susanna Reid Stephen Sackur Valerie Sanderson Ritula Shah Babita Sharma Kate Silverton Jon Sopel Charlie Stayt Bill Turnbull Jeremy Vine Kirsty Wark Justin Webb Tim Willcox Sian Williams Julian Worricker Executives Fran Unsworth Category

External links [edit]

• HARDtalk Official site