Website owner
Paul Martin.
Office: The Studios, 86 Great Bushey Drive, London N20 8QL.
Hosting
Gandi SAS, 63-65 Boulevard Masséna 75013 Paris, France.
Copyright
The use or reproduction, even partial, of the texts, photographs or graphs it contains is formally prohibited, without previous written approval by Corona-Invest. Illicit copying is considered as an infringement. Also considered as infringements are: any reproduction, adaptation, translation or change in the content of the site, as well as any transfer of the content to another site.
PAUL MARTIN
BACKGROUND
A media law expert, a broadcaster, an investigative and narrative journalist, a radio and television producer, a film-maker, a pioneer of media innovation – and last but not least, a fighter for justice and citizens’ rights in his native South Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
Founder of the for-profit cutting-edge news and insight provider MediaZones, and now of not-for-profit Corona-Invest, Paul Martin has shown a very wide array of talents and achievements in his professional career. His key subjects have been human rights, sport and its political dimensions; and foreign affairs, especially the Middle East and Africa.
One film he initiated won the One World Media Award in the category of Women’s Rights in Africa, in May 2016. It was also awarded the Best Short Feature at the Association for International Broadcasting later that year.
In 2017 he was appointed to the Advisory Panel for the Association for International Broadcasting. He is also currently writing a book with a senior member of the late Nelson Mandela’s family.
Martin launched into broadcast journalism immediately he graduated in African Government and Law from the University of Cape Town. His anti-apartheid activities led to his exile. to London and Nairobi. He then wrote in British newspapers under Paul Martin Cainer, his original name, or abbreviated it to Paul Martin.
As a correspondent for the BBC in the Mideast and North Africa, he reported on major world events: the Egypt-Israel peace accords, the era of Anwar Sadat and the first year of rule by Hosni Mubarak, the Iran hostage crisis, war in Lebanon, the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, the Iraq-Iran war, and Gaddafi’s Libya… and that was just in the first four years of his more than three decades reporting from across the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.
In that time his intrepid foreign coverage was put forward for the British Press Awards and twice for the Pulitzer Prizes.
Equally prolific on his return to London, he wrote and broadcast for the world’s leading media on sport, sports politics, and foreign affairs.
He has run international media companies in London for two decades. Having founded and run three London-based international production companies for television and later for multimedia, he established working relationships with media outlets worldwide . In 1999-2001 he edited the largest non-State-controlled radio news production and distribution service across Africa.
He was inside Iraq as American and British troops conquered Saddam Hussein, then chronicled the country’s descent into extended conflict. He was seized by a militant group in the Near East for 26 days in 2010. Later that year the documentary he was making when held captive was shown on BBC World in two runs, including as a Film of the Year.
He filmed and reported from 2011 onwards at the forefront of events in the ‘Arab Spring’, especially in the key country, Egypt. He continued to make numerous contributions to the BBC Radio’s flagship programmes ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ and ‘Last Word’.
Three of his recent documentary films in the Middle East and South Africa have been shown on the BBC and on ITV.
WHY WE FOUNDED CORONA-INVESTMENT
Paul Martin has been involved in humanitarian causes since illegally teaching maths to black pupils in apartheid South Africa. His fight against racism there has inspired his whole life view. His defence of the rights of citizens, as opposed to governments, has also got him into hot water – like 26 days held captive by hardline militants, and so on.
He sees the Corona pandemic as the greatest threat to humanity across the planet since World War II, and was galvanised into action by seeing three of his close friends admitted to intensive care as a result of Covid-19 (mercifully all three survived). His daughter, a medical doctor, along with British National Health Service staff, is on the frontlines of the battle.
He is also in an excellent position to give the investors and the companies they invest in, maximum publicity in the media whenever required or advantageous.