AustLit

Australian journalist.

Mark Colvin was the voice of ABC Radio's leading current affairs program PM. He was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J, initiated The World Today program, and was one of the most popular and influential journalists in the Twittersphere.

Born in London, Colvin was the son of John Horace Ragnar Colvin, a diplomat during the Cold War, and Elizabeth Anne Manifold. Hos mother's uncle was Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, a former Prime Minister of Australia and first Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University. His father was the son of Admiral Sir Ragnar Colvin, and grandson of Clement Sneyd Colvin, who served in the India Office.

Colvin was educated at Oxford University, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English literature. Arriving in Australia in 1974, he began working at the ABC in January 1975, as a founding staff member of Double Jay (later Triple J), the rock music station. He worked at Double Jay until 1978, when he was posted to Canberra as a television news producer. Shortly afterwards, he began work on Nationwide.

In 1980, Colvin was appointed foreign correspondent in London. Over his career, he would cover such events as the American hostage crisis in Tehran, the rise of Solidarity (the Polish trade union), the ending of the Cold War and lifting of the Iron Curtain, the Ethiopian fame (his reports on which were nominated for an International Emmy Award), the Cambodian peace process, and the Rwandan Genocide (during which he developed a dangerous autoimmune disease). He returned regularly to Australia, founding The World Today on the ABC in the mid-1980s, working as a reporter for Four Corners between 1988 and 1992, and reporting for The 7:30 Report.

In 1997, he returned to Australia and took up his role as presenter for ABC Radio's PM, for which he was still working at the time of his untimely death in May 2017.