Orla Guerin

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Orla Guerin MBE (born May 15, 1966 ) is an Irish journalist and news anchor. She is a correspondent for BBC News.

Early life and career

Guerin was born in Dublin and attended a convent school. The journalist graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and graduated from the College of Commerce in Dublin with a degree in Journalism in 1985. In addition, she holds a Masters Degree in Film Studies from University College Dublin (UCD).

At the beginning of her career, Guerin worked for newspapers such as the Sunday Tribune in Dublin. Guerin joined RTÉ News in 1987 and became their youngest foreign correspondent when she was sent to Eastern Europe in 1990 at the age of 23. She stayed with RTÉ until 1994 and also reported from Central Europe, the former Soviet Union , Yugoslavia and Sarajevo . Guerin's reports from for RTÉ Radio won the 1992 Jacob's Award.

She left RTÉ to run for the Irish Labor Party in the Irish European Parliament elections in 1994 . The political newcomer Guerin had been personally chosen by then Labor Party leader Dick Spring . Although she was not selected at the party convention, Spring insisted that she be included in the ballot. She did not win a seat, despite taking seventh place out of 15 candidates with 6% of the vote.

BBC career

Guerin joined the BBC in 1995. She was based in Los Angeles from January 1996 and became the company's Southern Europe correspondent in July 1996. Until June 2000 she worked in Rome. During this time, Guerin reported from Kosovo , North Macedonia and the Basque Country in northern Spain. In the second half of 2000, Guerin was stationed in Moscow and reported on the Kursk submarine disaster .

In 2002, Guerin explained to Quentin Letts, of the Evening Standard, the need to wear appropriate clothing, as she reported regularly from war zones :

“I got my first flak jacket from the Irish Army, but they didn't give me the armor plates that you put in your vest. Without it, the jacket was worth about as much as a white handkerchief. I'm a little wiser now and luckily the armor plates have gotten lighter. You can't run very fast in a flak jacket, but sometimes you have to wear one. I knew colleagues who died without them. "

- Orla Guerin

Guerin was appointed BBC correspondent for the BBC in Jerusalem in January 2001. In early April 2002, the BBC filed an official complaint with the Israeli government after Israeli soldiers shot at Guerin and her team and reporters were forced to seek refuge while a peaceful demonstration began in Bethlehem, West Bank. Almost exactly two years later, the Israeli government wrote to the BBC accusing Guerin of showing "a deep bias against Israel" in a report on a possible teenage suicide bomber. The BBC defended Guerin's coverage. Caroline Hawley followed her as the BBC correspondent in Jerusalem. In December 2005, the BBC informed the broadcast - with magazines that Guerin had spent two years longer in Jerusalem than the normal three-year rotation, which is usual for their correspondents. Former BBC Director General Greg Dyke wrote: “I have no doubt that the BBC's decision to pull its Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents. However, it was a pretty bad time to announce within a few days of Director General Mark Thompson's visit to Israel where he had a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ”. In January 2006 she became the BBC's Africa correspondent in Johannesburg . After that, Guerin was a BBC correspondent in Islamabad, Pakistan.

In October 2015, former BBC chairman Lord Grade wrote to James Harding, the head of BBC News, criticizing the coverage of guerins from the Middle East. In the letter, which was published in The Jewish Chronicle , Grade complained that it had accepted "equality" between Israel and the Palestinians. Grade faulted her reporting for assuming "equivalence" between Israel and the Palestinians. According to Grade: “It was inappropriate for the correspondent to claim 'there is no evidence of militant group involvement' before footage of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) banner was immediately shown in the home of a 19-year-old terrorist who died on Sept. Carried out a fatal knife attack on the Lion's Gate in Jerusalem on October ".

On February 23, 2018, Orla published an investigative report entitled "The Shadow Over Egypt", in which she reported the alleged disappearance of Egyptians, including a young woman named Zubeida, whose mother was abducted by security forces in April 2017. On February 26, 2018, a live interview was broadcast on the Egyptian ON-TV network in which Zubeida and her husband were interviewed by Amr Adib, a prominent regime reporter. The interview revealed that Zubeida had been estranged from her mother since April 2017, got married and had a baby just two weeks before the BBC report. However, on February 27, 2018, Zubeida's mother stated in a live phone interview with Istanbul-based opposition television station Mekameleen that she insisted on all of her previous claims and implied that Zubeida had been forced to do the interview. On February 28, 2018, it was reported that Zubeida's mother had been arrested by Egyptian security forces.

In 2019, Guerin is the BBC correspondent in Caracas , during the presidential crisis and protests in Venezuela.

Awards and personal life

In 2002, Guerin received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex and won the Broadcaster of the Year award from the London Press Club. In 2005 she was awarded an MBE for broadcast services.

In 2003 Guerin married the Reuters correspondent Michael Georgy. That same year she received the News and Factual Award from Women in Film and Television UK. In 2009 she received honorary degrees from both Northern Irish universities, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster . In 2014 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Orla Guerin: BBC Middle East Correspondent Orla Guerin reveals how she got into journalism . In: Press Gazette , May 16, 2005. Retrieved October 29, 2016. 
  2. ↑ a b c d Orla Guerin - BBC Middle East correspondent . BBC News. 2003. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c Quentin Letts: The woman with a bias towards bloodshed . In: Evening Standard , April 9, 2002. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
  4. ↑ Home is where the war is . In: The Observer , August 28, 2005. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
  5. ↑ Result summary - European Election - June 1994 - Dublin . ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
  6. ↑ Ewen MacAskill: BBC protests after crew caught in violence . In: The Guardian , April 3, 2002. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
  7. ↑ Chris McGreal: BBC accused of bias against Israel . In: The Guardian , April 1, 2004. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
  8. ↑ a b BBC pulls Guerin out of Israel . In: Broadcast , December 1, 2005. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
  9. ^ John Plunkett: BBC's North heads for Baghdad . In: The Guardian , December 13, 2005. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
  10. ^ Greg Dyke: Greg Dyke on Broadcasting. (No longer available online.) In: The Independent . December 12, 2005, formerly in the original ; accessed on March 8, 2019 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.independent.co.uk
  11. ^ Greg Dyke: Greg Dyke on Broadcasting: The BBC should never give in to pressure - or even be seen to. In: The Independent . December 12, 2005, accessed March 8, 2019 .
  12. ^ Newswatch - Profiles - Orla Guerin. In: BBC News . January 23, 2006, accessed December 29, 2015 .
  13. ↑ a b Marcus Dysch: Ex-BBC chairman Lord Grade attacks corporation over Israel coverage . In: The Jewish Chronicle . October 19, 2015. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  14. ↑ Adam Sherwin: Lord Grade: Former BBC chairman accuses corporation of bias in coverage of stabbing attacks on Israelis . In: The Independent , October 20, 2015. Retrieved December 29, 2015. 
  15. ↑ Orla Guerin: The shadow over Egypt . In: The Guardian , February 23, 2018. 
  16. ↑ Anas Habib: Egyptian TV host reveals BBC's enforced disappearance hoax . In: Egypt Today , February 26, 2018. 
  17. ↑ في أول ظهور لها بعد لقاء ابنتها مع عمرو أديب والدة زبيدة تكشف عن أسرار لأول مرة . February 27, 2018. Retrieved February 28, 2018.
  18. ↑ حقوقيون: قوات الأمن تعتقل أم زبيدة . Retrieved March 1, 2018. 
  19. ↑ Honorary Graduates: Orations and responses: Orla Guerin . University of Essex. July 11, 2002. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  20. ^ Claire Cromie: Queen's University of Belfast Graduations. In: Belfast Telegraph. July 6, 2009, accessed May 11, 2013 .
  21. ↑ Orla Guerin: Bradford University awards honorary diplomas to journalists, a top physicist and a leading campaigner. In: Bradford Telegraph and Argus. July 18, 2014, accessed July 18, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Guerin, Orla
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish journalist and news anchor
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1966