David Loyn

David Loyn (born 1 March 1954) has been a foreign correspondent since the late 1970s, mostly with the BBC. He is an authority on Afghan history.[1]

Education

Loyn was educated at Oundle School,[2] a boarding independent school in the historic market town of Oundle on the River Nene in Northamptonshire, in the East Midlands region of England, where he boarded at Bramston House,[2] followed by Christ Church at the University of Oxford.[3][4]

Life and career

Loyn worked as a Radio correspondent for IRN for 8 years, and in 1987 he joined the BBC as a TV correspondent. He is currently the BBC’s International Development correspondent.

Loyn has frequently sought to report on the motivation of insurgent groups, including interviews with Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, Maoist Naxalite rebels in India, Kashmiri separatists, and the Kosovo Liberation Army. He has conducted several significant exclusive interviews with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Loyn’s reporting career includes the following highlights:

International reporting work

Loyn has written extensively on how international development issues are reported. He has been a long-term advocate of better understanding of the effects of reporting violence, both on the journalists and for those on the receiving end. He is on the European board of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma. He is also a member of the Dart Society, which brings together journalists on both sides of the Atlantic. But Loyn has been an opponent of a school of journalism known as ‘Peace News’, and debated with its supporters both in public and in a widely cited academic discourse.

Loyn is on the board of the Media Standards Trust and a trustee of the Roddy Scott Foundation. He is on the Advisory Council of the Mcdonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life in Oxford, and is a founder member of London’s Frontline Club.

Publications

Loyn’s first book, Frontline, told the story of the Frontline TV agency. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Orwell Prize. It is currently in production as a feature film. His second book, Butcher and Bolt – 200 years of foreign engagement in Afghanistan, was published in 2008 (in the US, the book is called In Afghanistan).

Butcher and Bolt was widely seen as providing insight into why the Afghan war proved a far harder fight than it had initially looked in 2001. The book drew parallels between foreign engagements in the past and today to suggest why Afghanistan was harder to hold than it was to take.

Personal life

Loyn is a practising Catholic. He says that "because of my faith, I also understand there is a spiritual aspect to conflict" and that he believes the conflicts on which he has reported for many years "do have a spiritual heart, which we rather miss in our reporting."[3]

References

  1. "Review: Butcher & Bolt by David Loyn". The Daily Telegraph. 4 October 2008. Retrieved 29 October 2010.
  2. 2.0 2.1 School News - David Loyn: Reporting from the Frontline Publisher: Oundle School. Published: 26 June, 2012. Retrieved: 8 May, 2013.
  3. 3.0 3.1 The Faith of a Foreign Correspondent: David Loyn, BBC Correspondent and practising Catholic Publisher: Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Retrieved: 8 May, 2013.
  4. David Loyn Publisher: Christ Church, Oxford. Published: Michaelmas Term 2008. Retrieved: 8 May, 2013.