Marie Colvin

Memorial for journalists killed in Bayeux.

Marie Catherine Colvin (born January 12, 1956 in Oyster Bay , New York , † February 22, 2012 in Homs , Syria ) was an American journalist .

Life

Colvin was born the daughter of a teacher couple. Her father, a former US Marine and veteran of the Korean War , became involved as an activist for the Democrats under John F. Kennedy . Marie Colvin organized protests against the Vietnam War in her hometown of Oyster Bay . She studied American literature at Yale University . As a journalist, she first worked for United Press International in New Jersey, then in Paris.

In 1986 she was the first to interview Muammar al-Gaddafi after the attacks on Libya , whom she met several times in later years. From 1986 Colvin worked as a freelancer for the Sunday Times and married the Middle East correspondent for the paper, Peter Bishop , with whom she lived in Jerusalem for several years. Over the next few decades, she reported for the Sunday Times from a wide variety of crisis and war zones, including the conflicts in the First Gulf War , Lebanon , Kosovo , Israel and Yemen .

During Operation Donner in 1999, Colvin helped protect 1,500 refugees in the UN camp from the siege by the Indonesian army through her reporting. She reported in newspapers and television for four days before the refugees were evacuated. Colvin received an award for her report from Chechnya . Here she came under fire from Russian planes.

She lost her left eye as a result of an attack in Sri Lanka in 2001 and has been wearing a black eye patch that has made her easily recognizable. Barbara Kopple accompanied her work during the 2nd Gulf War in Iraq alongside four other journalists in the documentary Bearing Witness .

On February 22, 2012, Colvin was killed in an artillery attack on a house in Bab al-Amr, a district of Homs, during the civil war in Syria . Photographer Rémi Ochlik also died in the attack . Other western journalists were injured.

On March 12th, Colvin was buried in her hometown of Oyster Bay. In 2018, A Private War was released, a biographical feature film in which Colvin is played by Rosamund Pike .

Awards

• 2000: British Press Award - Best Foreign Correspondent of the Year
• 2000: Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation
• 2012: Anna Politkovskaya Prize from the British human rights organization Reach All Women in War (RAW)
• 2019 (posthumous): Medal des Ordem de Timor-Leste

Publications

• Marie Colvin: On the Front Line. The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin. (Published posthumously) HarperPress, London 2012. ISBN 978-0-00-748796-7

literature

• Denise Leith: Bearing witness. The lives of war correspondents and photojournalists . Random House Australia, Milsons Point NSW 2004, pp. 93ff. ISBN 1-74051-260-X .
• Lindsey Hilsum: In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018 ISBN 9780374175597

Web links

• Marie Colvin in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Sherry Ricchiardi: Highway to the Danger Zone . American Journalism Review, April 2000
• Tributes paid to Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin . BBC News, February 22, 2012
• Jörg Burger: The woman who didn't look away. In: ZEITmagazin No. 10 from February 8, 2013

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Marie Colvin, obituary. The Telegraph , February 22, 2012.
2. ^ Judith Miller : God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East . Simon & Schuster , 1996, p. 232.
3. ↑ Press release of the President of East Timor: President expresses deepest sorrow for the death of veteran war correspondent Marie Colvin
4. ↑ Danica Kirka: Respected American journalist Marie Colvin was killed in bombardment in Syria. Associated Press , February 22, 2012.
5. ↑ Martin Chulov: Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin killed in Syria. The Guardian , February 22, 2012 (English).
6. ↑ The saddest of homecomings: Murdoch joins mourners as Marie Colvin is finally buried after being killed in Syria . Daily Mail, March 12, 2012.
7. ^ President of East Timor: PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC BESTOWS UPON TEN INDIVIDUALS AND ENTITIES THE ORDER OF TIMOR-LESTE , September 1, 2019 , accessed on September 3, 2019.