Background
Brabant was born in 1955 in Willesden, in the London borough of Brent, and raised in and around the large town of Ipswich in Suffolk in the East of England.
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Malcolm Brabant
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Education
Brabant was educated at Northgate Grammar School for Boys (now part of Northgate High School), a former state grammar school in Ipswich, from 1966 to 1973.
Career
Having trained with the British Broadcasting Corporation, he was employed by them for more than 20 years, reporting from various locations. Described as the "King of the Stringers", Brabant has also worked for United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. After training with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Brabant worked on Anglia Today. He then went freelance to become an overseas correspondent.
Working as a "Stringer" – a journalist paid by the news organisations on a per-piece basis – for 22 years he reported from various overseas territories and on numerous news stories, including Sarajevo, Montserrat, Denmark, Greece, the United States and the Middle East.
In 2008 following a British Broadcasting Corporation corporation wide review led by Mark Byford, British Broadcasting Corporation News introduced new money-savings contracts. Previously, British Broadcasting Corporation News had bought all material from their contract freelance journalists, in whatever form: written.
Sound recorded. Television media. Editorial.
Under the new contract, it was proposed that the British Broadcasting Corporation would only buy the required pieces, while restricting contracted freelancers solely to working for British Broadcasting Corporation News. Brabant led the orchestrated opposition, which resulted in him and other freelance journalists being allowed to sell the non-required pieces to other news organisations.
Hence in 2009, after British Broadcasting Corporation News bought Brabant"s written follow-up piece on the Danish cartoon controversy for their website, Brabant sold the visual recording to other news organisations. Other freelance journalists later commented that Brabant had single-handedly saved British freelance journalism.
Brabant also worked for United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, providing bespoke news reports on key issues which the organisation could use to highlight defined issues.
Malcolm Brabant can currently be seen regularly on Public Broadcasting Service Newshour, where, as a special correspondent, he reports from Europe on the Syrian refugee crisis and other events. In 2011, Brabant become seriously ill following a routine inoculation against Yellow Fever. Asked to report from Ivory Coast by United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, Brabant was administered the yellow fever vaccine Stamaril made by Sanofi Pasteur in April 2011, at the Vaccination Centre East Attica in Pallini, Athens.
Suffering an adverse reaction, he has since suffered three psychotic episodes, and spent more than three months in the intensive care units of psychiatric hospitals in three countries.
The family are currently resident in Denmark while Brabant receives additional care and assessment. He was replaced in Autumn 2012 by the British Broadcasting Corporation"s then-Balkans Correspondent, Mark Lowen.
