Mark Little is an Irish journalist, television presenter and author. He presented ''

Prime Time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

'' for

RTÉ (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

until December 2009. He took a year of leave of absence from RTÉ to pursue a project centered on digital media and global journalism. He launched the project in April 2010, called Storyful. which he sold to

News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a List of newspapers in the United Kingdom, British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media Conglomerate (c ...

in 2013. In 2015 he joined

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, first as vice president of media and partnerships for Twitter in Europe and later becoming managing director of Twitter in Ireland. He resigned from the position in 2016.

Early life and education

Little was born in Dublin and lived in

Malahide Malahide ( ; ) is an affluent coastal settlement in Fingal, County Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, situated north of Dublin city. It has a village centre surrounded by suburban housing estates, with a population of 18,608 as per the 2022 ...

County Dublin County Dublin ( or ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland, and holds its capital city, Dublin. It is located on the island's east coast, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. Until 1994, County Dubli ...

, later moving to

Oughterard Oughterard () is a small town on the banks of the Owenriff River close to the western shore of Lough Corrib in Connemara, County Galway, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located about northwest of Galway on the N59 road (Ireland), N59 road. ...

County Galway County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...

. He studied Economic and Social Studies at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

for 5 years, and took his BA degree in 1997. During college, he served as president of the Students' Union for a year, and was a member of the Labour Party.

Career

Little began his career in

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

working for ''

The Sunday Business Post The ''Business Post'' (formerly ''The Sunday Business Post'') is a Sunday newspaper distributed nationally in Ireland and an online publication. It is focused mainly on business and financial issues in Ireland. Founding to Irish financial crisi ...

''. He was then hired as a TV reporter for

RTÉ News and Current Affairs (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

in 1991, after answering a

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

advertisement. He became RTÉ's first

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

Correspondent in 1995. He remained there until 2001, before returning to Dublin to become Foreign Affairs Correspondent. His Washington post was filled by Carole Coleman. In 2001 he won TV Journalist of the Year in the ESB National Media Awards. In his time with RTÉ, he has met such US politicians as

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

and

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

. He presented the documentary programme ''Who's Afraid of Islam?'' in 2006. He has also reported from disaster and conflict areas such as,

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

. In 2008, he presented ''American Dream: Dead or Alive'' on

RTÉ One RTÉ One is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by RTÉ. It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''Telefís Éireann'' on 31 December 1961, it was renamed ''R ...

. Little often presented RTÉ News specials such as

Government budget A government budget is a projection of the government's revenues and expenditure for a particular period, often referred to as a financial or fiscal year, which may or may not correspond with the calendar year. Government revenues mostly incl ...

s and

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

s. In 2002, he joined RTÉ's flagship current affairs programme ''

'', which he co-presented with

Miriam O'Callaghan Miriam O'Callaghan (born 1959 or 1960) is an Irish television current affairs presenter with RTÉ. O'Callaghan has presented ''Prime Time'' since 1996, and her own summer talk show, ''Saturday Night with Miriam'', from 2005 onwards. In the su ...

. In November 2009, he announced his desire to take a leave of absence from RTÉ for the period of a year. His reason was to pursue a project combining

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

and global journalism. On 17 December 2009, he presented his final ''Prime Time''. This being a field he has experience in through his work on

. On 12 April 2010, his new project, storyful.com, was launched. He developed the website along with other web journalists. In 2016, Little resigned from Twitter and started Neva Labs, which was launched in 2018 as Kinzen. On October 5, 2022, Spotify announced it had acquired Kinzen for an undisclosed amount.

Personal life

In his early 20s, Little was in a relationship with Maxine Brady, the then president of the

Union of Students in Ireland Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Unio ...

. His first child, a daughter, Sorcha, was born when Little was 21. As of December 2009, Little was married to Tara Peterman, an American who worked with him on ''Prime Time'', they had two children, Daisy and Tommy, and lived in

Dalkey Dalkey ( ; ) is a village in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown county southeast of Dublin, Ireland. It was founded as a Viking settlement and became a port in the Middle Ages. According to chronicler John Clyn (c.1286–c.1349), it was one of the port ...

, County Dublin.

References

External links

Storyful.com
*
Mark Little on 'The Future of News'
at IIEA, 11 December 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Little, Mark 1968 births 20th-century Irish people 21st-century Irish people Living people Alumni of Dublin City University Alumni of Trinity College Dublin RTÉ newsreaders and journalists People from Malahide Broadcasters from County Galway People from Oughterard, County Galway