The hot topic of the legitimacy and truth in the media provided food for thought when award winning journalist Old Leightonian Shyam Bhatia (G1968) spoke to Sixth Form students today. He reminded them of the key principles of good journalism in a world of citizen journalists and asked “In an era when truth has become a marketable commodity can journalists still pride themselves as belonging to a so-called 4th Estate that’s acts as a check on the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government in a democratic society ?”
Shyam’s incredible career led him to win the Foreign Reporter of the Year Award in 1993 and took him all over the Middle East. The lot of a foreign correspondent seeking the truth on the front line can be a dangerous one: he recalled being kidnapped by the Mujahiddin in Afghanistan. Other extraordinary recollections included using Yasser Arafat’s fondness of honey to give him special access, or after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, he managed to talk his way into Saddam’s palace and was offered a gold Kalashnikov. He declined the offer.
Read Shyam’s fascinating autobiography “Bullets and Bylines: From the Frontlines of Kabul, Delhi, Damascus and Beyond”.
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