Award-winning journalist Matt Frei joins broadcaster Matthew Stadlen for a compelling conversation on global politics, frontline reporting and decades covering the world's biggest stories.

About Matt

Matt Frei is an acclaimed British-German television journalist, news presenter, interviewer and author, renowned for his global reporting and analysis. He currently serves as Presenter for Channel 4 News in the UK and hosts a Saturday morning talk show on LBC Radio. He is revered as one of the most distinguished broadcast journalists in the UK whose international career has spanned some of the most significant global news events, amassing countless awards and industry recognition.

Frei’s broadcasting career began in 1989 at the BBC where he served as a correspondent across the Middle East, Asia and Europe, including in Bonn - starting on the very day the Berlin Wall fell. He moved to Washington DC in 2002 to become Washington DC correspondent and in 2005, reported from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The following year he became the first presenter of BBC World News American, and hosted BBC Radio 4’s Americana programme for three years.

In 2011, Matt would move to Channel 4 to take up the role of Washington Correspondent. He quickly became a familiar face across their news and current affairs output, producing documentaries such as The American Road Trip: Obama’s Story and The Mad World of Donald Trump. An interview with Donald Trump in Trump Tower (2013) has become one of the most recognised moments in Channel 4 News history.

By 2014, Frei was appointed Europe Editor and anchor of Channel 4’s flagship 7 pm news bulletin. Under this stewardship, the network has delivered outstanding coverage of the Ukraine crisis, reporting from the MH17 crash site, Crimea tensions, and Kyiv, and later the Russian invasion in 2022 which saw him win a BAFTA. His interview with President Zelenskyy in early 2024 remains one of the most news-making global interviews with the embattled Ukrainian leader since the start of the war, including the iconic call to President Trump to ‘end the war in 24 hours’.

Frei now serves as Channel 4 News’ lead international anchor, fronting major political debates and global events, including every US Presidential election of the past two decades.

Frei’s journalism has seen him earn numerous international accolades, including an International Emmy for Channel 4 News reporting on the Israel-Hamas War (2024), Hong Kong (2020) and earlier Syria coverage (2017). He is a two-time winner of the Royal Television Society’s Journalist of the Year award (2015 & 2015), alongside winning a Peabody, Dupont and Amnesty Award for his work at the BBC. Further honours include back-to-back BAFTA awards for coverage of the Ukraine war (2023) and the Gaza conflict (2024), as well as the Charles Wheeler Award (2022).

Alongside his journalism career, Matt is an acclaimed author of the 2008 book Only in America - written during his time as Washington Correspondent at the BBC. He is a regular media commentator and speaker at international events, and later this year will deliver the prestigious Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture, in partnership with the Royal Television Society.

Born in Germany, Frei’s parents settled in Essen after leaving Silesia in the post-war period. When he was about ten years old (1973), the family relocated to the UK. He was educated at Westminster School, then studied history and Spanish at St Peter’s College, Oxford, graduating in 1986. Frei is married to the artist Penny Quested and lives in London.