Reporter: An Autobiography

The autobiography of the eminent journalist, broadcaster and author, Trevor Fishlock. Renowned as a foreign correspondent from over 70 countries, he won the David Holden Award for foreign reporting and the prize for International Reporter of the Year in the British Press Awards. He also received a Bafta award for his television programmes.

About the Author :
Trevor Fishlock is a writer and broadcaster who reported as a foreign correspondent from more than sixty countries for The Times and The Daily Telegraph. He is the author of books on Wales, India, Russia, America and on nineteenth-century exploration, and has written and presented more than one hundred and fifty television programmes about life and history in Wales.

Review :
Prince Charles’s short sojourn as a student at Aberystwyth attracted a plague of journalists. Back then, in 1969, I was working as a reporter for Y Cymro, and as a Welsh speaker earned many a pint for translating anti-English propaganda for bleary-eyed hacks at the White Horse or the Skinners Arms. Expecting a scoop every other day, the tabloid reporters breakfasted daily on pink champagne. Offers of hundreds of pounds were bandied about for photos of Charles caught in compromising positions. None materialised. Among the press gang was a young, slim Times correspondent who was unlike most of the motley crew in that he seemed to know instinctively what was what. And while the great majority packed away their pens and notebooks after a few frustrating weeks of non-stories, he persevered. His name was Trevor Fishlock. He is still around, still writing and commenting on Welsh life. Any Englishman who regards himself as a foreign correspondent in Wales qualifies as an honorary Welshman. The word ‘respect’ has always been ingrained in Fishlock’s journalistic attitude. He was raised on newspapers in Hayling Island, his parents daily devouring various newspapers ‘as happy as horses with nosebags’. Thus, printer’s ink ran in their son’s veins. From his boyhood he was destined to be a journalist. In Reporter, his fifteenth literary offering, he takes us on a world tour recalling his reporting in such diverse countries as America, Canada, Australia, Russia, China, Africa, India, Pakistan and the Caribbean. In Wales, his television work with director Wil Aaron has spawned some of the best documentaries ever produced here. Again the key word is ‘respect’, central to the attitude of both presenter and director. Fishlock is a highly regarded journalist. He is trusted, no mean achievement nowadays when many of his profession are regarded with the same suspicion as that accorded to city bankers and politicians. During his 50 years in journalism, he has witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly. At Dharamsala he interviewed the Dalai Lama. In America he encountered David Duke, ‘grand wizard’ of the notorious Ku Klux Klan. In Romania he witnessed the last bloody stand of tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu’s thugs. Despite experiencing adventures that compare to those he once read in his beloved Wizard and The Hotspur as a youngster, he shuns sensationalism. His writing is understated, always matter-of-fact. Full of matter; full of facts. Yes, there are still a few honest journalists around. Trevor Fishlock is such a man.