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Assignment: Hugh Sykes: Reporting from the frontlines

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Hugh Sykes: Reporting from the frontlines

27/08/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - Assignment, Hugh Sykes: Reporting from the frontlines

Hugh Sykes recounts the drama, danger and humour of life on the journalistic frontline

Hugh Sykes recounts a life spent on the journalistic frontline, telling Owen Bennett-Jones about the drama, danger - and humour - that he has witnessed.

Hugh Sykes has reported for the BBC since the 1970s and has travelled far and wide to witness some of the most significant events of our age. Here, in conversation with Owen Bennett-Jones, he discusses what some of those stories mean to him, and explains the journalistic values he applied to them.   From the historic British coal miners’ strike of 1984-5 to the insurgency in Iraq, Sykes has faced down danger, surviving respectively an attack by angry strikers who threatened to throw him into a canal, and a roadside bomb. Yet he has always insisted on keeping his own feelings out of the story, in order to let his subjects communicate directly to listeners. Meanwhile, we hear too about his love of Iran, formed by years spent there as a child, about his preference for the medium of radio over television – and about how high spirits in the studio once nearly landed him in trouble with BBC bosses. 

Producer: Michael Gallagher
Editor: Bridget Harney

(Image: Hugh Sykes files a report on location – watched by a donkey. Credit: Hugh Sykes’ collection)

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