Paul Mason is Newsnight‘s business and industrial correspondent. He joined the programme in 2001.

Before that he was deputy editor of Computer Weekly, a campaigning magazine whose investigative team regularly broke stories that made waves across government and industry. He spent a total of nine years covering business in magazines and newspapers before making the move into TV.

Prior to becoming a journalist Paul was a professional musician and lectured at Loughborough University of Technology. He was born in 1960 in Leigh, Greater Manchester. He was educated at Thornleigh Salesian College, Sheffield University and London University.

Paul won the 2003 Wincott Award for business journalism for his series of reports from China covering the economic and political transition there.

Paul was named Broadcast Journalist of the year in the 2004 Workworld Awards, for his reports on China, pensions and a film from Ebbw Vale on the way the steel unions are coping with life after the works have closed.

Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global, a book on the rise and fall of the global labour movement, was released in November 2006 and was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.