The Matrix Project is an effort to document personal factors that undermine powerful journalists’ claims of objectivity and impartiality. Are factors such as an elite education, establishment connections, personal wealth and interests in rival fields compatible with journalistic integrity? 

This page looks at the BBC’s Security Correspondent Frank Gardner. For more information on the database click here.

Education

Learn about the significance of a private/Oxbridge education here

Frank Gardner was educated at private/independent schools including Marlborough College (source) and a non-Oxbridge university.

Revolving Door

Learn about the significance of the Revolving Door.

Frank Gardner served in the Royal Green Jackets and the Territorial Army – affiliation with the British military makes for an interesting fit with the role of BBC Security Correspondent! (source)

Frank Gardner worked as an investment banker with Saudi International Bank and then Robert Fleming Bank from 1986 until 1995 (source)

“Establishment” Connections

Learn about the significance of Establishment Connections here

Primary

Frank Gardner’s father, Robert Neil Gardner, and mother, Evelyn Grace Rolleston, were both British diplomats (source). According to Gardner his mother was “only the third woman to get into the Foreign Office, and she had to fight a lot of sexism and prejudice” (source)

Frank Gardner’s grandfather, Dr John Davy Rolleston, was a prominent British epidemiologist who published several medical textbooks and was president of three sections of the Royal Society of Medicine (source)

• John Davy Rolleston was the nephew of Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, inventor of the Davy lamp and the arc lamp
• John Davy Rolleston was the brother of Sir Humphry Davy Rolleston, 1st Baronet, an even more prominent English physician who served as Physician-in-Ordinary to Kind George V, was president of the Medical Society of London from 1926 and president of the Eugenics Society from 1933 to 1935

Frank Gardner’s great-grandfather was Professor George Rolleston, a professor in physiology, anatomy and zoology who corresponded with Charles Darwin and whose bust can be found at the Oxford Museum of Natural History (source)

Frank Gardner’s girlfriend Elizabeth Rizzini is a weather presenter for BBC London (source)

Secondary

Frank Gardner was awarded an OBE for “services to journalism” in 2005 (source)

Complaints/Controversies

none.

Salary/Indications of Wealth

Learn about the significance of journalists with an unusual level of wealth here

Frank Gardner does not appear on the BBC’s list of high earners but is still likely to earn significantly more than the UK average.

As a point of reference, the Office for National Statistics list the average UK salary for 2021 as £26,193.

Summary

Frank Gardner, the BBC’s supposedly “impartial” Security Correspondent, was privately educated, comes from the heart of the British Establishment, served in the British armed forces and worked as an investment banker.

Impartial? Independent? Holding the powerful to account?

Learn more about the Matrix Project here.

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