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Stephen Cole is one of the best
known international news anchors in the world.
He is currently the senior news anchor of Al Jazeera
International based in London. He travels frequently to anchor
and report on location and has made several programmes on
Eastern Europe.
The success of the award-winning launch has meant more
international coverage for Stephen and as well as demand for his
services as a Chairman and Moderator in the Corporate and
Broadcast Industries. He also regularly trains Britain and
Europe’s top business executives on how best to react to the
media.
At the beginning of his career Stephen covered the Birmingham
pub bombings by the IRA in 1974.
He was a member of the Special ITN Unit covering the Falklands
War of 1982. On the advice of ITN he moved in front of the
cameras to anchor Sky News when it launched. The following year
he was tipped as the News Face of the Nineties. He went on to
report on two Gulf Wars, the death and funeral of the Princess
of Wales, and the Kosovo and East Timor conflicts and anchored
“9-11” throughout the unfolding disaster.
For more than twenty years Stephen has fronted the worlds
leading and most respected news channels including Sky News and
CNN, eventually joining BBC World in 1996. In the next ten years
he has covered every significant national and international news
story.
Stephen anchored the fall of Eastern Europe and presented
live from the Berlin Wall when it came down.
Later he went on to present “ live “ from war zones and
presented live Election coverage from cities as diverse as
Moscow, Islamabad, Paris, Sofia, Cairo, Hong Kong, Taipei and
Delhi.
Stephen launched a new programme, Asia Today, with the emphasis
on East Asia and it is currently still one of the BBC World’s
most watched programmes.
In April 2000, Stephen created and launched the hugely
successful BBC News feature IT programme Click Online.
He presented and produced the show on the road to many countries
including Brazil and Argentina, the USA, India, Germany, Taiwan,
China, Pakistan, Finland.
He regularly interviewed all the world’s major IT players like
the bosses of Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Oracle, Intel and Orange.
He took time out to chair and moderate the WCIT World Congress
in Adelaide. He co-presented the Congress with former US
President Bill Clinton and afterwards secured an exclusive
interview which was reported by more than a hundred newspapers
around the world.
A journalist for 30 years, he graduated quickly from
newspaper reporter to television producer/reporter... first with
BBC News and Current Affairs' Nationwide (the programme that was
watched every evening by a quarter of the UK's entire
population) and from there to ITN.
Recently he investigated and reported on stories as diverse as
organised crime in Bulgaria, Counterfeiting in Romania and
People Trafficking in Moldova and Ukraine. Most recently his
reports contributed to the break up of a gang smuggling
antiquities across the Balkans.
Stephen hit the headlines himself during the 2005 strike by
BBC staff when he was asked to present all BBC news coverage
including the six o’clock and 10 o’clock bulletins on BBC 1 and
BBC news 24.
Such was the public reaction to him and his inimitable way of
presenting, the bulletins drew in record numbers of viewers and
jammed switchboards.
Born in Hereford, Stephen is married to a BBC Radio Four
producer, and has three sons. He is a former Youth Chairman of
the world-famous London Welsh rugby club and a School Governor.
His interests outside work include tennis and films. He is a
member of BAFTA. |
