Lyse Doucet


Lyse Marie Doucet, is a Canadian journalist who is the BBC's Chief International correspondent and senior presenter. She presents on BBC World Service radio and BBC World News television, and also reports for BBC Radio 4 and BBC News in the United Kingdom. She also makes and presents documentaries.

Early life and education

Doucet is a native of Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, where she grew up in an anglophone family. Her sister is Andrea Doucet, a Canadian professor of sociology. She has Acadian, Irish and a bit of Micmac ancestry. She graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Queen's University at Kingston in 1980, where she wrote for the university newspaper.
She gained a master's degree in international relations from the University of Toronto in 1982.
The same year, she undertook a four-month volunteer assignment teaching English with Canadian Crossroads International in the Ivory Coast. She is currently one of the organisation's honorary patrons. Doucet speaks English and French

Career

From 1983 to 1988, Doucet worked as a freelancer in West Africa for the Canadian media and for the BBC. This period proved a stepping stone to a longer term career with the BBC. Doucet reported from Pakistan in 1988, and was based in Kabul from late 1988 to the end of 1989 to cover the Soviet troop withdrawal and its aftermath. She was the BBC correspondent in Islamabad from 1989 to 1993, also reporting from Afghanistan and Iran. In 1994 she opened the BBC office in Amman, Jordan. From 1995 to 1999 she was based in Jerusalem, travelling across the Middle East. In 1999, she joined the BBC's team of presenters but continues to report from the field.
Doucet is often deployed to anchor significant news events from the field, and to interview key individuals. She played a leading role in the BBC's coverage of the Arab Spring, reporting from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. She has covered all major wars in the Middle East since the mid-1990s. Doucet has been a frequent visitor to Pakistan and Afghanistan since the late 1980s. Her work also focuses on the aftermath of major natural disasters, including the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 which took her to India and Indonesia.
In 2014 she made the documentary Children of Syria with film-maker Robin Barnwell, which was nominated in the Best Single Documentary category at the 2015 BAFTA Awards.
In 2015 she made the documentary Children of the Gaza War with film-maker James Jones.
In 2018, she presented two documentaries entitled "Syria:The World's War" for BBC 2 and BBC World
Starting on New Year's Day, 2018, Doucet presented Her Story Made History; a five-part series on BBC Radio 4 featuring in-depth interviews with five remarkable women. The theme is the relationship between women and democracy. A second series was broadcast in the summer of 2019 on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

Other activities

Doucet is a former council member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. She is a founding member of the Marie Colvin Journalists' Network along with Lindsey Hilsum and Lady Jane Wellesley, a trustee of the Frontline Club for journalists, and a member of the Canadian Journalism Forum on Trauma and Violence. She is also involved with Friends of Aschiana UK which supports working street children in Afghanistan and is an honorary patron of Canadian Crossroads International. Doucet takes pride in her ancestry and attends the Acadian World Congress which is held every five years. She notes that "It would be hypocritical to spend all my time learning about other tribes if I were to neglect my own".

Awards

In 2002, she was the only journalist to accompany the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to his brother's wedding, where an assassination attempt was made. She and her team were later nominated for a Royal Television Society Award for their exclusive coverage of the attempt. Doucet last interviewed Ahmed Wali Karzai in April 2011, shortly before his assassination.
In 2003 she was awarded a Silver Sony Award for News Broadcaster of the Year for her interview with Yasser Arafat in his compound in Ramallah.
In 2007, she was named International Television Personality of the Year by the Association for International Broadcasting. She also received the News and Factual award from the organisation Women in Film and Television.
Doucet won a Peabody and a David Bloom award in 2010 for her film on maternal mortality in Afghanistan, along with producer Melanie Marshall, Shoaib Sharifi and cameraman Tony Jolliffe. She won Best News Journalist at the 2010 Sony Radio Academy Awards.
In 2012, her team was awarded an Edward Murrow award for radio reports from Tunisia.
In 2014, her team was part of the BBC's Emmy award for its coverage of the Syrian conflict. Doucet was also awarded the ITV Studios Achievement of the Year Award at the annual Women in Film and Television Awards in London.
In 2015, Doucet won the Sandford St Martin trustees’ award "for her commitment to journalism and her intelligent and clear reporting of the religious elements of global events". She also received a Bayeux-Calvados Award for war correspondents.. She also won One World Media’s Radio Award for a documentary on Afghan women.
In 2016, she was also awarded the Columbia School of Journalism Award for exceptional journalist achievement.
At the 2017 International Media Awards, Doucet was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting Award. The award is given to journalists whose body of work has led to better understanding, and as a consequence increased prospects for peace. She also received the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism by the British Journalism Review.
In 2017, her team won the Luchetta Prize, awarded for work which raises the awareness of the plight of children in war, for its story on a Syrian teenager in the Syrian city of Homs.
In 2018, she was awarded "The Trailblazer Award" from Georgetown University's Institute for Women Peace and Security. She also received the #ChangeTheCulture award from Their World, a global children’s charity based in London UK.
Doucet has an honorary doctorate in civil law from the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of New Brunswick, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from University College at the University of Toronto, and an honorary doctorate in journalism from Université de Moncton, and an honorary doctorate from Queen's University in Kingston.
In Britain, Doucet has received honorary doctorates from the University of York, the University of St Andrews , Liverpool Hope University, York St John University, the University of Sussex, Queen's University Belfast, and Cranfield University.
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to British broadcast journalism.
She was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada in December 2018.