Mark Colvin

Mark Colvin (13 March 1952 – 11 May 2017) was an Australian journalist and radio and television broadcaster for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and worked on most of the flagship current affairs programs. Notably, based in Sydney, he was the presenter of PM— the radio current affairs program on the ABC Radio network — from 1997 to 2017.

Biography Career as a journalist and broadcaster Colvin graduated from Christ Church, Oxford University, with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English literature and arrived in Australia in 1974. With no clear career ambitions and failing as a builder's labourer, being susceptible to heat stroke in the strong Australian sun, the dole office steered him toward journalism. In that year he commenced a traineeship with the ABC but had doubts during the year that he would stick with journalism. Nevertheless, in January 1975 he commenced at the ABC's rock music station Double Jay (2JJ, now known as Triple J) as one of the foundation staff, initially working as a cadet journalist. While at 2JJ, he presented news, conducted interviews, and produced current affairs and documentary specials until 1978. With strong foreign language skills in French, Italian and Spanish,

In 1980, at the age of 28, Colvin was appointed foreign correspondent in London, and travelled to cover major stories, including the American hostage crisis in Tehran and the rise of Solidarity in Poland. During his time covering the Middle East, Colvin was deeply affected by the death of his interpreter, Bahram Dehqani-Tafti, a secular Iranian murdered and dumped outside a Tehran prison. Colvin believed that the mullahs had a dispute with Dehqani-Tafti's father, the Anglican bishop of Iran in exile in London. After several months in hospital, during his convalescence he became aware of a side effect of the treatment—his hip joints collapsed and both hips had to be replaced.

Organ transplant On 22 March 2013, Colvin received a kidney transplant from a living donor. Colvin, and the hospital and staff, allowed the process to be recorded for television.

During 2010, Colvin worked to raise the profile of organ donation through interviews with a number of media agencies including The Sydney Morning Herald, The 7.30 Report, and Life Matters.

Stage play The story of Colvin's kidney donation and the circumstances surrounding it was the subject of a stage play titled Mark Colvin's Kidney by playwright Tommy Murphy. The play was produced by the Sydney theatre company Belvoir with David Berthold as director, and a cast including actor John Howard as Colvin and Sarah Peirse as Mary-Ellen Field.

Autobiography In 2016 Colvin released his autobiography, Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy's Son.

Family The Colvin family had a long history of military and administrative service to Australia, and previously to the British Empire. Colvin's father, John Horace Ragnar Colvin, was a Cold War diplomat, and the grandson of Admiral Sir Ragnar Colvin. He is the great-grandson of the India Office mandarin Clement Sneyd Colvin, whose father was John Russell Colvin. John Russell, son of an East Indies trader, ended up lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces of British India during the mutiny of 1857, had ten children and founded a dynasty of Empire-builders. Through this line, Mark Colvin's extended family includes Walter Mytton, Auckland Colvin, also lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces and Oudh; the landscape architect Brenda Colvin (1897–1981), and Sidney Colvin, a critic, curator, and great friend of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Through his mother, Elizabeth Anne Manifold, He was also the step-son of Admiral Sir Anthony Synnot. Colvin was married twice. He married his second wife, Michele Francesca McKenzie, in 1987. McKenzie is the mother of his two sons, Nicolas and William.

Death On 11 May 2017, Colvin died aged 65, at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, over twenty years after contracting granulomatosis with polyangiitis, the rare auto-immune condition which caused kidney failure in 2011. Colvin survived the kidney transplant only to be diagnosed with melanoma and then just before Easter in 2017 was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. He asked that anyone wishing to mark his death or honour his passing donate to the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation.