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Marie Colvin: An Obituary
Feb 22 2012 | Written by Charlotte Lytton

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Shortlink: http://redbrick.me/38885

Marie Colvin was killed in Syria reporting on current events

The journalism industry has lost a true icon today following the death of The Sunday Times’ foreign correspondent Marie Colvin.

The war reporter was killed in Homs, Syria, after a rocket attack was launched on the makeshift media centre where she was working. She was the only journalist from a British publication to be covering the uprising that has already caused thousands of civilian deaths.

Her final article was published in The Sunday Times over the weekend, where she described the current situation in Homs as ‘hell,’ and questioned why the UN has refused to come to the aid of the innocent. ‘We live in fear of a massacre,’ she wrote, and sadly those words rang true as both she and French photographer Rémi Ochlik lost their lives today, with several other journalists injured in the same attack.

She put her own life at risk repeatedly over her 30 year career as a war correspondent

Putting the devastation of war-torn countries onto a public stage was very much Colvin’s life’s work. She put her own life at risk repeatedly over her 30 year career as a war correspondent, reporting from the front lines in Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Libya and so many more in the hopes of prompting a response to the tragedies there. It was in the conflict between the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan government that she lost her eye, causing her to wear a patch ever since.

A native New Yorker, Colvin had worked for British publications for the majority of her career, and joined The Sunday Times in 1985. The newspaper’s editor, John Witherow, today spoke of her ‘fearless’ nature and her profound belief ‘that reporting could curtail the excesses of brutal regimes and make the international community take notice.’ Many of Colvin’s colleagues have talked not only of a dedicated reporter, but a woman full of joie de vivre and passion that made a lasting impact on those who knew her.

While most of us cannot share personal memories of Colvin, this does not change the huge impact she has had on war correspondence and the inspiring legacy she will leave. She was undoubtedly a woman trying to make the world pay attention to the destruction happening on its doorstep, and her death, much like her work, shows just how vital it is that we protect the lives of the innocent.

Marie Colvin – 1956-2012

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Shortlink: http://redbrick.me/38885

Written by Charlotte Lytton on Feb 22 2012. Filed under Comment, Feature, Key Stories, Online Exclusives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

  • Pingback: Three very different lives, three very different deaths « charlottelytton

  • quasarnine

    Mercilessly targeting that “safe-house” for journalists in Homs was tantamount to the Friends of Syria targeting a drone strike on the upscale apartment block of the Bashar al-Assad family in the posh Malki neighborhood of Damascus, or upon First Lady Asma al-Assad’s office in the nice Muhajireen part of the Syrian capital … but you aren’t seeing doable retaliatory attacks like that.   
    Most of us couldn’t imagine the raw courage of a Marie Colvin or a Rémi Ochlik, or an Edith Bouvier, who is seriously injured in that same Homs safe-house with the remains of her colleagues and unable to flee, all while they meticulously reported and filed a story or trenchant photograph from the most dangerous places. That kind of foreign correspondent is a rare journalist in a small, elite number, and their loss is profound.  We won’t forget them, and we won’t let the UN and the ICC rest until justice has been brought for these monstrous crimes.
    The Assad family and their Ba’ath Party of fascists always had choices in leadership and governance.  This is what they chose.  They are cowards.  And history will forever judge them on their outrageous record.

  • quasarnine

    Mercilessly targeting that “safe-house” for journalists in Homs was tantamount to the Friends of Syria targeting a drone strike on the upscale apartment block of the Bashar al-Assad family in the posh Malki neighborhood of Damascus, or upon First Lady Asma al-Assad’s office in the nice Muhajireen part of the Syrian capital … but you aren’t seeing doable retaliatory attacks like that.   
    Most of us couldn’t imagine the raw courage of a Marie Colvin or a Rémi Ochlik, or an Edith Bouvier, who is seriously injured in that same Homs safe-house with the remains of her colleagues and unable to flee, all while they meticulously reported and filed a story or trenchant photograph from the most dangerous places. That kind of foreign correspondent is a rare journalist in a small, elite number, and their loss is profound.  We won’t forget them, and we won’t let the UN and the ICC rest until justice has been brought for these monstrous crimes.
    The Assad family and their Ba’ath Party of fascists always had choices in leadership and governance.  This is what they chose.  They are cowards.  And history will forever judge them on their outrageous record.

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