Mark Urban

Mark Urban (born 1961) is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and orientalist, and is currently the Diplomatic Editor for BBC Two's Newsnight.

Education and early career

Educated at the independent day schools Rokeby School and King's College School, Urban continued his education at the London School of Economics. After graduation, he served in the Army, for nine months as a regular officer in the Royal Tank Regiment on a Short Service Limited Commission and four years in the Territorial Army.

Correspondent career

Urban joined the BBC in 1983 as an assistant producer, working on several BBC news programmes. From 1986 to 1990 he was the defence correspondent of The Independent, before rejoining the BBC as a general reporter on Newsnight. From 1993 to 1994 he was Middle East correspondent for BBC News, before becoming Newsnight's diplomatic editor, a role he has held since 1995. He has at times been an embedded reporter, first with British and then U.S. troops. In his years on Newsnight, he has reported on many of the most compelling foreign news stories in the past two decades: the Gulf War; the attempted coup d'état of 1991 in Moscow; 1993 events in Moscow; Bosnian War; Middle East peace process; the War in Kosovo; and the recent US military campaigns in War in Afghanistan and War in Iraq.