The Death of Marie Colvin

A little less than a year ago I wrote about a number of women whom I admired over the course of March (Women’s History Month). Two days ago, one of them, Marie Colvin was killed in Syria where she was covering the government-mandated slaughter currently taking place there. This is what I wrote about her in 2011. The whole post is here, if you’re interested.

Marie Colvin is a correspondent for the UK Sunday Times and has been one for over twenty years. She has covered conflicts in the Balkans, Chechnya, East Timor, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, and pretty much anywhere else things are blowing up. She was on CNN reporting from Libya last week. Though I can find tons of her work, I can’t find any biographical profiles. This piece, written in 2000 for the American Journalism Review, and this five-year-old article from the New York Daily News are the best I could do. I love her work because she goes places few will and stays after most leave. Such actions make good copy, but come with some with serious risk to life and limb. In 1999, Ms. Colvin lost her left eye while covering the Sri Lankan civil war in an incident which reads remarkably like a set up. Her work has not gone without recognition. In 2010, Ms. Colvin won the British Press Award for Best Foreign Journalist of the Year.

“Serious risk to life and limb” took the form indiscriminate shelling of the area where she was staying and cost her her life. Her death can, and no doubt will, make us all discuss many things like the risks faced by combat reporters, the value of their work, and it will be factored in when discussing the horrible situation in Syria as well. One of Ms. Colvin’s last reports was about watching a child die of shrapnel wounds. I think the best way to pay tribute to what she did is to share the message the she was reporting out of Syria. A warning – the video might be too graphic for some.