Mark Doyle is a British journalist and former world affairs correspondent for

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

. He is known in particular for his articles on topics related to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Early life and education

Career

In 1980, Doyle volunteered as a student teacher at the British-Senegalese Institute in

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.94 million in ...

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣� ...

. He later worked with

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

group Amnesty International and ''

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...

'', a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-based magazine, before joining the BBC as a producer for the programme '' Focus on Africa'' in 1986. He continued reporting out of several African countries, becoming the

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the histori ...

correspondent from 1993 to 1994."Mark Doyle"
''Newstalk'' biography, BBC News, 3 June 1998. He is known for his reporting done after he arrived in

Kigali Kigali () is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali has been Rwanda's economic, cu ...

at the beginning of the 1994

Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu ...

. Doyle was one of the few correspondents to slip into Kigali before the airport was closed and was the only journalist to report continuously throughout the genocide. His other work includes co-editor of coverage on the

1996 United States presidential election The 1996 United States presidential election was the 53rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1996. Incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton defeated former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the Republican nomine ...

and training of

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...

an journalists in

Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnist ...

. He has been correspondent for BBC's domestic service as well as

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

radio and TV and was appointed BBC's

correspondent in 1997. In 2004, Doyle received a

United Nations Correspondents Association The United Nations Correspondents Association (U.N. Correspondents Association), or UNCA, was founded in New York City in 1948. It has over 250 members today. It presents the annual UNCA Excellence in Journalism Awards. The purpose of the awards ...

UN Foundation The United Nations Foundation is a charitable organization headquartered in Washington, DC, that supports the United Nations and its activities. It was established in 1998 with a $1 billion gift to the United Nations by philanthropist Ted Turner, ...

UNCA Excellence in Journalism Award in the category "Reporting on Humanitarian and Developmental Affairs", with his producer Dan McMillan. The award was given for coverage of

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period ...

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. It ...

under the UN peacekeeping mission. As of 2007, Doyle was writing an account of his experiences in Africa entitled ''Under the Same Sky: Good Guys and Bad Guys in the Failed States of Africa''. In March 2015, Doyle left the BBC.The man admired by presidents and warlords
Andrew Harding, 29 March 2015 Doyle has stated that he is uncomfortable being described as an "Africa expert", noting in 1998:

"The little I have learnt about this place makes me realise that I am very ignorant about it. It's a vast continent with huge differences between even neighbouring countries. Like anywhere, it's full of ordinary people just getting on with their personal, complicated lives. Anyone who claims to be an 'expert' on Africa – as if it were a homogeneous region where simple rules apply – is either arrogant or just plain silly."

References

External links

in Panel 3: International media coverage of the Genocide of the symposium ''Media and the Rwandan Genocide'' held at

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Worl ...

, 13 March 2004.
"Too little, too late, wrong place"
by Mark Doyle, ''BBC News'', 6 April 2004.
"Rewriting Rwanda"
by Doyle, review of ''Furious Blacks, Lying Whites: Rwanda 1990–1994'' by Pierre Péan, ''

Foreign Policy A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through ...

'', May/June 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Doyle, Mark Year of birth missing (living people) Living people BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC World Service People of the Rwandan genocide British Africanists