Middle East Editor for the Guardian
Ian Black has been the Middle East editor of the Guardian newspaper since 2007. In more than 30 years on the paper he has also been its Diplomatic editor, chief foreign editorial writer, European editor and Middle East correspondent. Events he has covered in the region include the Iran-Iraq war and the first Palestinian intifada, the 2009 Iranian elections and the crises in Yemen and Libya. He was educated at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics and has studied Arabic at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He won the Laurence Stern Award to work at the Washington Post in 1983 and has been commended in the British press awards. He has also written for the Economist, the Observer, the Irish Times, Dagens Nyheter, and Middle East International.
He writes about a broad range of Middle Eastern issues in the Guardian newspaper and on guardian.co.uk, its award-winning website. He makes regular appearances on Arab, British and international TV and radio. He last visited Saudi Arabia for the Riyadh Arab summit in March 2007.