Richard Sambrook is a British journalist, academic and a former BBC executive. He is emeritus professor in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture atCardiff University.^[1] For 30 years, until February 2010, he was aBBCjournalist and later, a news executive.

Sambrook was educated atMaidstone Technical High School, theUniversity of Reading (BA in English) andBirkbeck College, University of London (MSc in politics). His career began in local newspapers in South Wales.

His 30 years at the BBC were almost entirely in the news. He was successively a programme editor, news editor and head of newsgathering when the corporation won many awards for its international news coverage. He merged radio and television newsgathering teams and domestic and World Service newsgathering during this time, resulting in the world's largest broadcast news operation. He was acting director of sport in 2000, and became director of news in 2001.

Sambrook defended in June/July 2003 what became the highly controversialToday programme report that theBlair government had in itsSeptember Dossier knowingly exaggerated claims relating to Iraq's supposed possession ofweapons of mass destruction. On 20 July, he confirmed thatDr. David Kelly had been the source of the news item. He later gave evidence to theHutton Inquiry into Kelly's apparent suicide.

He spent ten years on the management board of the BBC becoming successively director ofBBC Sport, director ofBBC News and finally, from September 2004, director of theWorld Service and Global News. He oversaw major restructuring of the World Service, and its opening of Arabic and Persian television, as well as commercial interactive services. He is a frequent contributor to radio and TV coverage of media issues and writes regularly forThe Conversation (website).

From 2010 until 2012, he was global vice chairman and chief content officer of theEdelmanpublic relations agency. From January 2010 until 2017, he was a visiting research fellow at theReuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at theUniversity of Oxford and from 2012 until 2021 a professor of journalism atCardiff University. He devised and launched one of the first degree courses in computational journalism in partnership with the computer science department at Cardiff.^[2] He has published several books and research papers on journalism including on international news, the future of TV News and the role of impartiality in digital news. In 2020 the BBC commissioned him to review staff use ofsocial media.

His non-executive roles have largely supported free speech and independent journalism. He is currentlyco-chair of TheBureau of Investigative Journalism.

From 2012 until 2018 he led the International News Safety Institute, for which he chaired an inquiry into the deaths of journalists around the world. From 2006 to 2009, he was vice president of theEuropean Broadcasting Union and represented public broadcasters on the advisory group to theUN'sInternet Governance Forum. He was a trustee of the free-speechNGOArticle 19 for six years and was a member of the leadership committee of theGlobal Media AIDS Initiative, established byUN Secretary GeneralKofi Annan in 2004. He was on the advisory board of theBritish Council and was formerly Chairman of the BBC's international charity, the World Service Trust (nowBBC Media Action). He was a trustee of theWWF-UK from 2010 to 2016. He is a Fellow of theRoyal Television Society and of theRoyal Society of Arts.

Sambrook is married with two children.

• Sambrook, Richard (2018).Global Teamwork: The Rise of Collaboration in Investigative Journalism. Oxford: Oxford University.ISBN 978-1-907384-35-6.
• Cushion, Stephen; Sambrook, Richard (2016).The Future of 24 Hour News. New York: Peter Lang.ISBN 978-1-4539-1816-6.
• Cottle, Simon; Sambrook, Richard; Mosdell, Nick (2016).Reporting Dangerously: journalist killings, intimidation and security. London: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN 978-1-137-40669-9.
• Sambrook, Richard (2010).Are Foreign Correspondents Redundant? The Changing Face of International News. Oxford: Oxford University.ISBN 978-1-907384-00-4.

• Are Foreign Correspondents Redundant? (Reuters Institute)
• Appointed Professor of Journalism
• BBC press office biography
• Killing The Messenger report for INSI
• The case against censorship, 2005
• Interview in the Guardian
• Interview by Ray Snoddy, the Independent
• Columbia University Poliak Lecture, 2005
• Speaking at European Journalism Centre Conference
• Sambrook to review BBC's social media use

• 1956 births
• Living people
• People from Canterbury
• British male journalists
• Alumni of the University of Reading
• Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London
• BBC executives
• Journalism academics
• Academics of Cardiff University

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from September 2016
• Use British English from September 2016
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox person with deprecated parameters