Paul Mason (born 23 January 1960) is economics editor of BBC's Newsnight. He is the author of Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global and, more recently, a book on the global economic crisis: Meltdown - the End of the Age of Greed.
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Mason was born in Leigh, Lancashire.[1] His father, John Mason (1927–1986), was a lorry driver for Ward & Goldstone Ltd. His mother, Julia (née Lewis, b. 1935) was headmistress of St Margaret Mary's Primary School, Hindley Green.
Mason was educated at the Voluntary Aided school St Joseph's RC Primary School in Horwich, at the time in Lancashire, and now part of Greater Manchester, until 1971, followed by Thornleigh Salesian College, also a Voluntary Aided school, which at the time, was an academically selective and partly fee-paying boys' Direct Grant Grammar School (now a non-selective co-educational Comprehensive school), in Bolton (also in Greater Manchester), until 1978. He graduated from the University of Sheffield[1] in 1981 and trained to be a music teacher at London University Institute of Education, after which he undertook postgraduate research in the music department at Sheffield University until 1984.
Mason lived in Leicester from 1982–1988, working as a music teacher, special needs teacher, and lecturer in music at Loughborough University.[1] Mason wrote the music for Tony Stephens' With the Sun on Our Backs (1985), a play about the miners' strike produced by Utility Theatre. While Musical Director of the Leicester Phoenix Theatre, co-wrote the children's musical The Third Class Genie (1986) with Robert Leeson.
Mason has lived in London since 1988, where, after 1991 he became a freelance journalist. From 1995 to 2001 he worked for Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, on titles including Contract Journal,[2] Community Care and Computer Weekly, on which he was deputy editor.[1] During the dotcom boom Mason launched E-Business Review and was consulting editor for the launch of CW360.com. He also contributed articles to the Daily Express and the Mail on Sunday.
In August 2001, Mason joined the BBC Two television programme Newsnight as Business Editor. His first live appearance on Newsnight was on 11 September 2001.
In May 2007, Mason's book Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global was published by Harvill Secker. The book was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award on 24 August 2007. In June 2007 Mason presented Spinning Yarns, a four-part series on the history of the cotton industry for BBC Radio Four.
Mason appeared as the key talent in a new five-part BBC series Credit Crash Britain, first broadcast on BBC Two on 30 October 2008.
Mason won the Wincott Prize for Business Journalism in 2003,[3] the Workworld Broadcaster of the Year in 2004[1] and the Diageo African Business Reporting Award in 2007. His report on the social movements behind Bolivian president Evo Morales was cited when Newsnight was awarded the Orwell Prize (2007).
It is claimed that Mason has addressed meetings of the Trotskyist organisation Workers Power, of which he was previously a member.
Mason is "father of the chapel" for the National Union of Journalists on BBC Newsnight. He is a supporter of Leigh Centurions and Manchester United F.C.. He is married to Jane Bruton.[4]
In the run up to the 2005 G8 Gleneagles conference, Mason was one of the first journalists at the BBC to be permitted to write a blog. His blog "Idle Scrawl" was later incorporated into Newsnight's "Talk About Newsnight" blog. Thereafter, together with Jeremy Paxman, he became the first person on UK television to broadcast from within the online virtual world Second Life, where he has an avatar also named Paul Mason.