Globe shuffles foreign bureau reporters

The Globe and Mail has announced two major changes to its foreign bureau appointments. Patrick Martin will move to the Middle East bureau in Jerusalem and Mark MacKinnon will head to Beijing, China.

These announcements come after two previous changes to the paper’s foreign bureaus were announced earlier this summer. Stephanie Nolen, the paper’s award-winning African correspondent, is leaving her post in Johannesburg to open a new India bureau for the paper in New Delhi. Replacing Nolen in Africa will be current China correspondent Geoffrey York.

The changes will be set in motion beginning in the fall, the Globe‘s foreign editor Stephen Northfield told J-Source, but due to the reporters’ various moving and family concerns, the timing is not yet set in stone.

“All of those people will be reporting from their new assignments as of January 1, if not sooner,” said Northfield.

Martin has been with the Globe since 1984. The move to Jerusalem is a return to familiar territory for him, as he was the paper’s Middle East correspondent from 1991-95 and served as foreign editor from 1995-99. He was also comment editor for the paper and is a regular member of TVOntario’s foreign affairs panels.

MacKinnon has been reporting for the Globe since 1998, when he began as a Toronto-based business reporter and moved to Ottawa as a parliamentary correspondent. He then served as the paper’s Moscow bureau chief and ultimately wrote The New Cold War, a book that stemmed from his years reporting in the country. He leaves his current post as Middle East correspondent to head to Beijing.

Nolen has reported on the HIV-AIDS pandemic in Africa, the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, the wars in Sudan and the peace process in Sierra Leone.  She is author of 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa.

York has held a variety of positions at the Globe since 1981, most recently Moscow bureau chief from 1994-2002 and Beijing bureau chief from 2002.