OU on the BBC: Looking For Democracy - Meet Robin Lustig

BBC

Robin Lustig began his journalistic career in 1970 as a foreign correspondent with Reuters news agency in Madrid, Paris and Rome. He then spent 12 years at The Observer, including three years based in the Middle East, before joining the BBC in 1989. He is now one of the BBC's most senior radio presenters and, as well as presenting The World Tonight on Radio 4, is also a regular broadcaster on BBC World Service, for whom he has anchored many landmark news programmes over the past decade. They include coverage of the handover of Hong Kong to China, the death of Princess Diana, the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, the war in Iraq, and the 2004 US Presidential election.

He has broadcast live programmes for the BBC from Abuja, Amman, Baghdad, Berlin, Harare, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Kabul, Kosovo, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, Sarajevo, Shanghai, Tehran, Tokyo and Washington.

Robin has anchored many election programmes for the World Service: every Israeli election since 1996, the British general elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Iranian parliamentary elections in 2000, as well as elections in Bosnia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia and Zimbabwe.
In 1999 he wrote and presented a 60-minute documentary on Aids in Africa, which was broadcast both on the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4, and in 2003, in the immediate aftermath of the Iraq war, anchored a special programme "The World after the War", which was also broadcast simultaneously on both networks.

He has also presented since its launch in 1998 the award-winning internet-based global phone-in programme Talking Point, which is now broadcast simultaneously on BBC World Service radio, BBC World television and on the internet. Among his guests on the programme have been Mr and Mrs Nelson Mandela, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and British Prime Minster Tony Blair.

Robin has received numerous awards including a British Press Award commendation for his coverage of the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984; and a New York Festival Gold Medal for his presentation from Moscow on the last day of the Soviet Union in December 1991. He also won the 1998 Sony Silver Award for Talk/News Broadcaster of the Year.

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