Matt Frei
Matt Frei is a Channel 4 News presenter and Europe Editor who also has his own show on LBC radio.
Matt is a vastly experienced foreign correspondent having reported from over 40 countries for Channel 4 and before that the BBC. He has the rare distinction of having been Washington Correspondent for both Channel 4 and the BBC.
Over the last decade Matt’s Europe brief has seen him frequently reporting on the Russo-Ukrainian crisis from the front line.
Career
Matt began his broadcast career with the BBC World Service working for the German section. on for a year before moving to English language current affairs.
In 1989 he reported on the first Intifada in Jerusalem before taking up the post of Bonn Correspondent on the day the Berlin Wall fell.
From 1992 to 1996 Matt worked as BBC Southern Europe Correspondent covering events in Bosnia, Kosovo and North Africa. He then moved to Asia for six years based first in Hong Kong and then Singapore.
In 2002 Matt took up the post of BBC Washington Correspondent. This role expanded to include presenting the hour-long BBC World News America from 2007. He also presented the weekly Radio 4 programme Americana, a documentary on the life and times of Berlin, and was an occasional presenter of Newsnight and The News at Six.
In 2011 Matt moved to Channel 4 as Washington Correspondent and becoming part of the channel’s presenting team across its range of current affairs programmes including making The American Road Trip: Obama’s Story and The Mad World of Donald Trump.
In 2014 Matt as Europe Editor Matt led Channel 4’s coverage of events in Ukraine from the crash site of Malaysian flight MH17 to tensions in Crimea and bloodshed on the streets of Kyiv.
In 2016 Matt also began presenting a Saturday morning show on LBC radio.
In 2022 Matt again led Channel 4’s coverage of events in Ukraine and the Russian invasion.
Books
Getting the Boot: Italy’s Unfinished Revolution published in 1995, looks at the moribund politics of post-war Italy and how they led to the transformation of Silvio Berlusconi from media baron to elected Prime Minister.
In Only in America Matt explores the paradoxical peculiarities of the superpower capital Washington, D.C., the Rome of the modern world. Published in 2008
Awards
BAFTA for News coverage of the Ukraine war Channel 4 News: Live in Kyiv (2023)
Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding contributions to Journalism (2022)
International Emmy for News, for Channel 4 News reports, Inside Aleppo – Battle for Aleppo, (2017) and Hong Kong: Year of Living Dangerously, (2020)
Voice of the Listener and Viewer Award (2018)
Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year 2015 & 2017, International News Award 2010
Dupont Award for Haiti Earthquake (2011)
Peabody Award for BBC World News America (2010)
Prix Bayeux Calvados Award for War Reporting (2000)
Amnesty International Asia Award, for Newsnight features
Personal Life
When not reporting from the field Matt lives in London with his wife, the artist Penny Quested and their four children.
