This article is about the BBC TV and radio journalist and presenter. For the France Television and radio journalist and presenter with similar sounding name, see Élise Lucet.
Lyse Marie DoucetCMOBE (/liːzduˈsɛt/; born 24 December 1958) 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 was born on 24 December 1958 in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada,[2] where she grew up in an Anglophone family. Her father was Clarence "Boo" Emile Doucet, and her mother Norma. She is one of six children. Her sister is Andrea Doucet, a Canadian professor of sociology.[3] She has Acadian and Irish ancestry.[4] She graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree from Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario,[2] where she wrote for the university newspaper.[5] In her youth, Doucet enjoyed curling; she was on the curling team for her province and went to the Canada Winter Games.[6]
From 1983 to 1988, she 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.[10][5] 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 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.[citation needed] Doucet has been a frequent visitor to Pakistan and Afghanistan since the late 1980s. Her work includes the aftermath of major natural disasters, including the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, which took her to India and Indonesia. She is a contributor on rotation with other BBC journalists to Dateline London on BBC News Channel and BBC World News.[citation needed]
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.[11]
In 2015, she made the documentary Children of the Gaza War with film-maker James Jones.[citation needed]
Beginning 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.[12] A second series was broadcast in the summer of 2019 on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.
Doucet reported extensively from Kabul Airport during August 2021, following the coalition withdrawal from Afghanistan after the Taliban offensive in the country.[13]
In the second half of 2021, she recorded a 10-episode podcast for BBC Sounds entitled A Wish for Afghanistan[14]
Doucet is a former Council Member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). 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: "It would be hypocritical to spend all my time learning about other tribes if I were to neglect my own."[5]
In 2002, she was the only journalist to accompany Afghan President Hamid Karzai to his brother's wedding, where an assassination attempt was made.[citation needed] She and her team were later nominated for a Royal Television Society Award for their exclusive coverage of the attempt.[citation needed] Doucet last interviewed Ahmed Wali Karzai in April 2011, shortly before his assassination.[17]
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.[citation needed]
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.[18]
In 2012, her team was awarded an Edward Murrow award for radio reports from Tunisia.[19]
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.[citation needed]
In 2015, Doucet won the Sandford St Martin trustees’ award[20] "for her commitment to journalism and her intelligent and clear reporting of the religious elements of global events".[21] 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.[22]
In 2016, she was awarded the Columbia School of Journalism Award for exceptional journalist achievement.[23]
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.[24] She also received the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism by the British Journalism Review.[22]
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.[22]