Early life

He was born in Doncaster

Doncaster

Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...

, South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

, in 1954 to John and Elizabeth Jill Marsh. He attended Doncaster Grammar School

Hall Cross School

Hall Cross School, founded in 1350, is a co-educational comprehensive school in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England.-Admissions:The school is split over two sites, with the Upper School located in the centre of Doncaster and the Lower School in the north of Bessacarr, near the Dome. Hall Cross...

 from 1966-73 and became Captain of School

School Captain

School Captain is a student appointed or elected to represent the school.This student, usually in the senior year, in their final year of attending that school...

, as well as Captain of Cricket

Captain (cricket)

The captain of a cricket team often referred to as the skipper is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of a regular player...

. He read Classics and English at Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

 and gained an MA in 1978. He also wrote for Isis magazine

Isis magazine

The Isis Magazine was established at Oxford University in 1892 . Traditionally a rival to the student newspaper Cherwell, it was finally acquired by the latter's publishing house, OSPL, in the late 1990s...

.

BBC

He joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1978. After working in Blackburn, Birmingham and Belfast, he joined the BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 Programme, The World at One

The World At One

The World at One, or WATO for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, which is broadcast from 1pm to 1:30pm from Monday to Friday. The programme describes itself as "Britain's leading political programme. With a reputation for rigorous and original...

- then presented by Sir Robin Day.

In 1986 he joined ITN and returned to the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 at the beginning of 1988 as Deputy editor of The World at One. In August 1989 he became Editor of PM

PM (Radio 4)

PM, sometimes referred to as the PM programme to avoid ambiguity, is BBC Radio 4's long-running early evening news and current affairs programme.-Broadcast times:...

, moving on three years later to edit The World at One. In 1996, he became joint editor of both The World at One and PM and in 1998, launched the new Sunday morning news programme Broadcasting House

Broadcasting House

Broadcasting House is the headquarters and registered office of the BBC in Portland Place and Langham Place, London.The building includes the BBC Radio Theatre from where music and speech programmes are recorded in front of a studio audience...

, presented by Eddie Mair

Eddie Mair

Eddie Mair is a British BBC radio and television presenter. He presents BBC Radio 4's daily news magazine PM also the Radio 4 Saturday only iPM and the BBC's NewsPod, is an occasional presenter of Newsnight, the stand-in presenter for Any Questions replacing the late Nick Clarke, and was the...

.

Today programme

He became editor of the Today

Today programme

Today is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...

programme in November 2002. In May 2003, Today became embroiled in a row with the Government over an early morning claim made by reporter Andrew Gilligan

Andrew Gilligan

Andrew Paul Gilligan is a British journalist best known for a 2003 report on BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme in which he said a British government briefing paper on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction had been 'sexed up', a claim that ultimately led to a public inquiry that criticised Gilligan...

 that the Government "probably knew" that one of the key claims made in its September 2002 dossier detailing Iraq's WMD

WMD

WMD may refer to:* Weapon of mass destruction, a term used to describe munitions with the capacity to kill large numbers of human beings indiscriminately* Weighted mean difference, a measure in statistical meta-analysis...

 "was wrong". Lord Hutton, in the findings of his subsequent inquiry, criticised the editing procedures on Today despite never having taken evidence from Marsh.

BBC College of Journalism

In April 2006, Marsh left Today to become Editor at the BBC College of Journalism, a new venture that was set up in 2005 in the wake of the Hutton report and the recommendations of the Neil committee which examined the BBC's response to the inquiry's findings. The College is not a physical entity but an e-learning online set of courses.

Marsh was a participant and panellist at the World Economic Forum

World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....

 annual meetings in Davos

Davos

Davos is a municipality in the district of Prättigau/Davos in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It has a permanent population of 11,248 . Davos is located on the Landwasser River, in the Swiss Alps, between the Plessur and Albula Range...

 in 2004, 2005 and 2006, is a visiting fellow at Bournemouth University

Bournemouth University

Bournemouth University is a university in and around the large south coast town of Bournemouth, UK...

 Media School, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

Royal Society of Arts

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...

 and a member of Chatham House

Chatham House

Chatham House, formally known as The Royal Institute of International Affairs, is a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in London whose mission is to analyse and promote the understanding of major international issues and current affairs. It is regarded as one of the world's leading...

.

External links

• Sources: BBC Press Office; Who's Who