FIDLER-SIMPSON
John

• 1. Career

John Cody Fidler-Simpson is an English foreign correspondent and world affairs editor of BBC News. He has spent all his working life with the BBC, and has reported from more than 120 countries, including thirty war zones, and interviewed many world leaders. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English and was editor of Granta magazine.

Career

Beginning his employment life with the world-renowned British Broadcasting Company in 1966, John’s illustrious career saw him start out as a sub-editor in radio news for BBC, to now World Affairs Correspondent, tackling some of the most globally influential and dangerous news stories to date.

Reporting from 140 countries, interviewing public figures including international leaders, villains, royalty and game changers; names such as Margaret Thatcher, Saddam Hussein, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Also King Hussein and King Abdullah of Jordan, Bashir al-Asad and Colonel Gadaffi. He also interviewd Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe. John Simpson has carved a name for himself in British and International broadcasting. He has cemented his eminent media career as one of the most decorated in the industry.

John was honoured in 1991 with a CBE as part of the Gulf War Honours list. Amassing two BAFTAs and an International Emmy, being named the Royal Society’s Journalist of the Year, twice, as well as obtaining a Peabody award, John Simpson’s name resonates dedication and is recognized as one of the most devoted journalists of our time.

Faced with some of the world’s most defining moments and truly life threatening scenarios, John relentlessly continued to break stories from across the globe. He regularly put his life on the line in the name of journalism. John danced on the Berlin Wall, dodged bullets in the Tiananmen Square massacre and survived an explosion in Iraq. This was a major moment in John’s career of which the translator escorting the journalist lost his leg. Unfortunately he died soon after.

Other momentous moments of John Simpson’s career include reporting the fall of Kabul in 2001. This was following a series of visits to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. He witnessed the rain of missiles on Baghdad in the first Gulf War. He was stationed in Northern Iraq as part of the second gulf war.  John visited Tehran to see Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian revolution. In an ever-changing journalistic landscape, John Simpson now concentrates on China, Russia and Ukraine.

2022 saw John back on BBC2 with his new Unspun World programme where he and fellow journalists discuss  the week’s major global news stories.