March 1

War reporting

Our newspapers, television and radio are giving us a harrowing up-to-the minute reports on the war in Ukraine. Never has war been so immediately and extensively covered.

And it is war correspondents who are risking their lives to bring us the news.

We watch as, standing in battle kit, they report dramatically from bomb shattered streets, bringing home to us war’s awfulness's, sadness and madness.

The BBC, with correspondents in almost every country, is doing a superb job, thanks to their presenters, reporters, camera and production teams.

It responded immediately to the need for live, responsible coverage sending Clive Myrie into the heart of the battle.

He spent ten days and nights reporting from a rooftop in Kiev interrupted by the sound of explosions, living in an underground makeshift shelter. A team of reporters in shattered, constantly bombarded cities in Ukraine, are risking bombs and shells while from neighbouring countries we are getting  heart-wrenching tales and pictures of masses of women and children who have fled their homes and country, their men stating to fight.

This is war reporting at a new level, but it started in the mid 1800s with The Times’ William Howard Russsell reporting the Boer war.

Today there are as many women reporters as men in the front line. One of the first was American Marie Colvin, who was The Times foreign correspondent for twenty five years and who died covering the Syrian war.

Clare Hollingworth, the first British woman war correspondent in September 1939 reported the  outbreak of the 1939-45war. She  was travelling from Poland to Germany when she noticed German troops massing on the border and three days later broke the news that the war had started.

Among the leading reporters in that war were Godfrey Talbot, Frank Gillard and Richard Dimbleby who flew in an RAF raid on Berlin as did Welshman Wynford Vaughan Thomas. I have just listened on the BBC archives to his live report from the Wellington bomber recorded at the height of the raid in September 1943. Frightening.

One of the veteran BBC reporters in the Ukraine is veteran BBC Middle East correspondent Jeremy Bowen whose father, Gareth, was a presenter, reporter in my days at BBC Wales many years ago,

First. Ritish One of the most outstanding was 

Marie Colvin