Paul Mason (journalist)

Early life and education

Mason was born in Leigh, Lancashire. His father, John Mason (1927–86), was a lorry driver for Ward & Goldstone Ltd. His mother, Julia (née Lewis, born 1935), was headmistress of St Margaret Mary's Primary School, Hindley Green. One grandparent was a miner and another was a Lithuanian-Jewish violinist.

Mason was educated at St Joseph's RC Primary School in Leigh and Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton. He graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in music and politics in 1981 and trained to be a music teacher at London University Institute of Education, after which he undertook postgraduate research into the music of the Second Viennese School at the University of Sheffield until 1984.

Mason lived in Leicester from 1982 to 1988, working as a music teacher, and lecturer in music at Loughborough University.

Journalist and broadcaster

Mason has lived in London since 1988, where, after 1991, he became a freelance journalist. From 1995 to 2001 he worked for Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier, on titles including Contract Journal, Community Care and Computer Weekly, of which he was deputy editor. During the dotcom boom Mason launched E-Business Review and was consulting editor for the launch of CW360.com. He also contributed articles to the Daily Express and the Mail on Sunday.

In August 2001, Mason joined the BBC Two television programme Newsnight as Business Editor. His first live appearance on Newsnight was on the day of the September 11 attacks in 2001.

In May 2007, Mason's book Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global was published by Harvill Secker. The book was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award on 24 August 2007. In June 2007, Mason presented Spinning Yarns, a four-part series on the history of the cotton industry for BBC Radio Four. Mason appeared as the key talent in a new five-part BBC series Credit Crash Britain, first broadcast on BBC Two on 30 October 2008.

In January 2012, Mason's book Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions was published in paperback by Verso.

Mason attended the Wigan Casino in his youth as a follower of Northern Soul and hosted a documentary about the Northern Soul scene for the BBC's The Culture Show in September 2013.

In August 2013, it was announced that Mason would join Channel 4 News as its culture and digital editor. In May 2014, it was announced that he would become the programme's Economics Editor at the beginning of the following month, replacing Faisal Islam.

Mason announced in February 2016 that he was leaving his position at Channel 4 News in favour of freelancing so he could engage more fully in debates on the political left without the constraints of impartiality placed on broadcasters in the UK.

Playwright

In 2017, he wrote Divine Chaos of Starry Things, a two act play looking at the life of Louise Michel and other exiles from the 1871 Paris Commune in exile in New Caledonia. The Guardian described it as "a frustrating, clunky but always intelligent drama focusing on the women in New Caledonia, and particularly the revolutionary Louise Michel. While her comrades take refuge in drink and hopes of appeal against their sentences, Michel keeps the red flag flying. She recognises that the oppression of the Kanaks and of the Parisian working class are one and the same".[1]

Awards

Mason won the Wincott Prize for Business Journalism in 2003, the Workworld Broadcaster of the Year in 2004, and the Diageo African Business Reporting Award in 2007. His report on the social movements behind Bolivian president Evo Morales was cited when Newsnight was awarded the Orwell Prize (2007).

Personal life

Mason was Father of the Chapel for the National Union of Journalists on Newsnight. He is a supporter of Leigh Centurions rugby league club and Manchester United F.C. He is married to nurse Jane Bruton.

Politics

Mason is a former member of the Workers' Power group. He responded to an interviewer from the Evening Standard in 2011: "It's on Wikipedia that I was, so it must be true. It's fair to say I was a Leftie activist. What my politics are now are very complicated." In an interview with The Independent in 2015 he described himself as having been a "supporter" of the group.

In a speech in 2015 marking the publication of Naomi Klein's book This Changes Everything, he declared that "capitalism is dying". Mason has called for an alliance of "bond traders from Canary Wharf, arm in arm with placard-carrying Trots" against right-wing populist groups such as UKIP. Mason later described UKIP voters in unfavourable terms, stating "They are toe-rags, basically. They are the bloke who nicks your bike".

In 2016, Mason distanced himself from his former involvement in far-left Trotskyist politics, by saying that he no longer holds such views and identifies with a "radical social democracy":

As to Mr Osborne’s claim that I am “revolutionary Marxist” it is completely inaccurate. I am radical social democrat who favours the creation of a peer-to-peer sector (co-ops, open source etc) alongside the market and the state, as part of a long transition to a post-capitalist economy. There’s a comprehensive critique of Bolshevism in my latest book, Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future.

In June 2016, Mason supported Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn after mass resignations from his cabinet and a leadership challenge. He wrote in The Guardian: "But one thing I do know: Corbyn is incapable of lying to the British people; he is inured to elite politics; he didn't spend his entire life in a Machiavellian project to gain power and an invitation to Oleg Deripaska's yacht. That's why I voted for him and will do so again if you trigger a leadership vote."

Cyberspace

In the run up to the 2005 G8 Gleneagles conference, Mason was one of the first journalists at the BBC to be permitted to write a blog. His blog "Idle Scrawl" was later incorporated into Newsnight's "Talk About Newsnight" blog, which has now also been closed. Thereafter, he became the first person on British television to broadcast from within the online virtual world Second Life, where he has an avatar also named Paul Mason.

Books