Alastair Malcolm Leithead (/ˈliːθhɛd/; born 1972) is an English journalist working as a foreign correspondent for the BBC. Leithead was based in Nairobi from 2015 to 2019.^[1] He works across all BBC News outlets.

Alastair Leithead was born in Amersham to Arthur Leithead, a security manager, and Edna Leithead (née Mooney), a teacher in private education. He was raised in Blaydon-on-Tyne and educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle.^[2] He then went to the University of Manchester to study geography.^[3]

After graduating from the University, Leithead worked at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle before joining BBC Radio Newcastle. Later he worked as a news producer in London.

As a foreign correspondent, Leithead has been based in Africa and Asia before moving to Kabul. There he covered the war in Afghanistan. Leithead has reported from a refugee camp in South Sudan. More recently, he has been based in Los Angeles before being re-located to Kenya as the BBC's Africa Correspondent in July 2015.^[4]

Leithead won the 2007 Bayeux-Calvados Awards for war correspondents Television Award for his war reporting. In 2005/6 he was shortlisted for the Royal Television Society's TV Journalism Award, and in 2008 he was shortlisted for a BAFTA for best news coverage.