Lindsey Hilsum, the International Editor for Channel 4 News, has spent over three decades reporting from conflict zones around the globe. She shares her compelling journey from an aid worker in Latin America to a front-line journalist, recalling her experiences during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Lindsey discusses the evolution of journalism in the digital age and highlights her unique connection to flat screen TV technology. She also reads a poignant poem from her latest book, blending storytelling and artistry amidst the chaos of war.
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Pioneering Father
Lindsey Hilsum's father, Cyril, is a renowned physicist who invented the flat-screen television.
He also invented the radar gun for speed traps.
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Unscientific Child
Despite both parents having science PhDs, Hilsum failed her biology O-level.
She inherited her love for literature and poetry from her mother, a French teacher.
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Fortuitous Start
While at Exeter University, Hilsum sought work in Latin America instead of teaching English in Europe.
She landed a volunteer role with Oxfam in Guatemala after her letter arrived on a fortuitous day.
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In 'I Brought the War with Me', Lindsey Hilsum reflects on her nearly four decades as a journalist covering conflicts from Palestine to Kosovo to Rwanda. The book intertwines her personal stories with a collection of poems from ancient to modern times, translated from various languages, highlighting the human side of war and its lasting impacts. Alongside each poem, Hilsum shares memories from her work, including interviews with warlords and encounters with child soldiers.
Lindsey Hilsum is the International Editor for Channel 4 News, where she has worked for over 25 years. Having started her career as an aid worker in Latin America, she transitioned to journalism, and she has now reported from six continents for over three decades. She has covered many major conflicts including Kosovo, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and across the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Her third book I Brought the War with Me: Stories and Poems from the Front Line is out now.
On the podcast Lindsey tells Katy Balls about starting out her career in Guatemala and in Kenya, what it was like being the only English-speaking journalist in Rwanda when the genocide broke out in 1994, and why she is drawn to studying human behaviour in extreme situations. She also talks about her surprising link to flat screen TV technology, how journalism has changed from cutting up clippings from a typewriter to modern open-source intelligence techniques and the place she would most like to travel to – the past. Having always carried a book of poetry with her on her travels, she also reads a favourite included in her new book: The Child at the Window by Siegfried Sassoon.
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