A few minutes ago, I noticed on Facebook that a great French pal of ours, Hervé Amoric, is among the small army of brave journalists covering Putin's horrendous war, in his case from the western city of Lviv (Putin calls his invasion, and slaughter of civilians, a peace-keeping mission and apologists in the West swallow it whole).
Please stay safe, Hervé, and anyone working with you - I am thinking of poor Oleksandra 'Sasha' Kuvshynova, a young Ukrainian 'fixer' killed with a cameraman yesterday.
Hervé is based in London and Belfast. Few journalists know Irish politics and the story of Northern Irish Troubles better. A second volume of Reporting the Troubles has just been published; if a third edition should ever be planned, Hervé should be encouraged to contribute.
My own chapter has been reproduced with the editors' permission at Salut! Live. But it is only what I have described as change-of-pace floss, dealing as it does with the way I was able to combine my passion for Irish music with a conscientious professional duty to cover events north and south of the Irish border.
Extract:
Looking back, I am surprised at how often I was able to fit musical interludes into visits to Ireland. Far from being a distraction, they produced friendships and experiences that enriched my journalism.
I learned how Irish music and dance could bridge the Protestant–Catholicdivide. The BBC’s Wendy Austin told me about Protestants like her who had enrolled children in Irish dance classes – the colourful costumes bought in Andersonstown. Other parents cooperated and it made a pleasantly off-beat piece for the Telegraph.
A great friend, the late Neil Johnston of the Belfast Telegraph, was a Protestant from Omagh who presented an excellent BBC Radio Ulster series, cleverly entitled The Wrong Note, that chronicled the Irish music exploits of other Protestants.
Over the years, I saw Mary Black, Sharon Shannon, the Dubliners, the Chieftains, Ron Kavana and many more during these trips, without ever feeling I was compromising my reporting obligations.
But others have offered much more profound recollections. I have read a few of the chapters and have already been struck by those written by Deric Henderson, co-editor with Ivan Little of the compilation, and Freya McClements, northern editor of the Irish Times, on the impact of the violence on children. Freya has written a book I absolutely resolve to read, Children of the Troubles; the untold story of the children killed in the Northern Ireland conflict: Deric's piece is the utterly heartbreaking but beautifully told story of a 12-year-old girl killed with her dad when the IRA booby-trapped the family car.
I urge you to buy the book at this link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1780733259?tag=salusund-21 - and, indeed, the first volume at this one, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1780731795?tag=salusund-21
Journalists are accustomed to being called scum. They and their work is routinely trashed by those, not just from far left and far right, who cannot bring themselves to stop and think about how necessary that work actually is.
There is bad journalism and there are bad journalists just as there are bad plumbers, lawyers, accountants, estate agents and IT experts. When journalists are killed while doing their jobs, they are briefly seen as courageous and truth-seeking, if still essentially scum.
The forewords to this book, by former prime ministers of Ireland and Britain, redress the balance a little:
I personally know many journalists who worked in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and who will never forget the horrors they witnessed. Many will be affected in a lasting and real way for the rest of their lives. Memory will remain their wound, Bravery and profound empathy with a commitment to tell the truth, often in the face of deadly threat, is not always easy but is necessary to record the first draft of history through the press ...
--- Bertie Ahern
[this book] reveals to the stoicism and bravery of those journalists, reporters and their colleagues who. faced with unimaginable pain and suffering, bore witness to the atrocities perpetrated and their aftermaths with admirable professionalism ...
--- Sir Tony Blair
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