Matt Frei

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Matthias Frei (born 26 November 1963 in Essen, Germany) is the BBC's Washington, D.C., correspondent, and the presenter of BBC World News America.

He was educated at Westminster School, then read History and Spanish at St Peter's College, University of Oxford, before graduating in 1986. He joined the BBC shortly after graduation. After a year in the German Section of the World Service, he moved to English Language Current Affairs, where he worked for another year.

In 1989, working as a stringer, he reported on the First Intifada in Jerusalem, then on the Gulf War as London Foreign Affairs Correspondent. He took up the post of Bonn Correspondent in Germany on the same day as the fall of the Berlin Wall. Afterwards he took a holiday in Zimbabwe in 1990, and persuaded aid worker friend Katty Kay to become a journalist.^[1]

From 1992 to 1996, he worked as Southern Europe Correspondent, based in Rome, and covered events in Bosnia, North Africa and various Mafia-related stories. He wrote a book, Italy: The Unfinished Revolution, which was published in 1995.

He worked as Asia Correspondent for six years, based in Hong Kong (taking up his post just before the handover to China) and later in Singapore.

In 2005, Frei reported from the centre of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In October 1, 2007, Frei became the first presenter of BBC World's one hour Washington-based news broadcast, BBC World News America. Supported by correspondent Katty Kay, it airs on BBC News, BBC America, BBC World News, and several PBS stations.

[edit] Awards

Amnesty International Asia Award, for Newsnight features on Vietnam and Indonesia (1997 and 1998)
Royal Television Society International News Award (2000)
Prix Bayeux for War Reporting (2000)