Roles in Conflict: The Woman War Reporter

• Main Author: Maggie Allison
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès 2010-07-01
• Series: Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone
• Subjects: BBC; conflict zone; embedded journalist; gender; media; war reporter
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/1120

This chapter addresses the conflicting roles of the woman journalist in the context of war and crisis. While referring to a number of women journalists, three British and two French, it focuses on the issue through the prism of the now iconic BBC reporter Kate Adie, famous in particular for her reporting of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London, the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989 and, embedded with the British forces, the 1990 Gulf War. It first traces Adie’s career development from local radio assistant to prestigious war reporter. There follow examinations of: the gender factor for the woman reporter in a war zone; the question of “blending in” or not in terms of military and local dress; asserting one’s authority as a woman in conflict zones with cultures other than one’s own; maintaining one’s standards of impartiality while having a privileged role as a war reporter, vis-à-vis the military, one’s own government and the local governments in the theatre of war.