Remembering Marie Colvin

And so another witness, one more of the band of people who take a deep breath and plunge in to places where most would not, is dead. Marie Colvin watched a baby take its last breaths in Homs yesterday and re-told the story with evident emotion on ITN last night. This morning at around nine o’ clock, she became the latest victim of the relentless shelling of Homs.

And her voice is silenced.

I worked alongside her many times. She was not fearless, as so many say. She had lost an eye covering violence in Sri Lanka a decade ago and knew what price war could exact and what suffering it caused. But she was brave. She took the deep breath over and over and plunged herself in, as deep as she could, to scoop out the nuggets we all need to know. And we were all, as a people, better for her. Her final dispatch was as deep as they come, in the “widows’ basement” where women and children cower from Assad’s assault and death feels imminent. At a time when journalists are being examined as never before, it’s time to acknowledge someone who made a difference, a moral difference,to our country and our lives. That was Marie.

Just over a year ago we both attended a memorial service in London for journalists killed in the previous decade. Mark Austin,who also knew Marie, read out a list of almost fifty names. We all knew many of them. Marie gave the address. She said we had to keep our nerve and keep reporting war. Why? So that no-one would have an excuse to say “I did not know”.

In the last few days of her life, Marie wrote of the death of another stalwart of war reporting, a fellow American, from the New York Times: “Shocked by the news of the death of Anthony Shadid, a brilliant journalist and writer whose work glowed with his humanity and was always so kind and gentle. He will be so missed at a time when he was the best person to shed light on this strange new Middle East.”

After she filed her blockbuster report from Homs, published this Sunday, she joked with a colleague on Facebook,who assumed she had escaped,that she hadn’t just yet. “I think the reports of my survival may be exaggerated. In Baba Amr. Sickening, cannot understand how the world can stand by and I should be hardened by now. Watched a baby die today. Shrapnel, doctors could do nothing. His little tummy just heaved and heaved until he stopped. Feeling helpless. As well as cold! Will keep trying to get out the information.”

She wanted her words from Syria to reach as wide an audience as possible and was frustrated at the “paywall” that prevented her article for the Sunday Times being widely available on the internet. “Getting the story out from here is what we got into journalism for. If anyone can figure out how” (to get over the paywall) “you have my permission to post it, as in I will take the firing squad in the morning. I’m just not able to technically do it, as I am still in Baba Amr. Also, can I make a plea? I see that people are beginning to describe the way in to Syria illegally. We all agreed with our smugglers not to, at least in detail, because that will get the path cut. It is not just for journalists, but it is the only way out for the badly wounded whose only chance is a Lebanese hospital. Please spread this around. And anyone coming in, it is FREEZING”. Here was typically passionate Marie, pleading with fellow journalists to spread the news of a massacre and to protect a vulnerable escape route. As for the flak from her bosses “I will take the firing squad in the morning”. And here too was generous Marie, advising us all to bring warm clothes.

Many of us wrote to her on Facebook in the last two days. In her last hours, she posted back “Thanks for all your help…A nightmare here. Mx”

To one friend she joked “thanks..for offer to be a human shield. photographer paul conroy with me as well and has posted some amazing photo”

And to another “you are a star. and have clearly joined the 21st century. i’ll get there one day.”

To Paul Wood of the BBC,who filed some memorable reports from the same city just a few weeks ago she wrote “Following in your footsteps. Everyone here remembers you as 2amazing”. Very irritating. X.”

Lovely, generous Marie.

When I read her report on Sunday, I felt humbled. I have just come back from ten days in Syria. I was on an official visa; frustrated not to get to Homs and able to escape the eyes of Assad’s men only to cover protests in the capital and chase the secret police around Dera’a. I knew her work had touched the very heart of the story.

I’m sure she knew it too;knew that she’d got to where she set out to be.But like the climbers who reach the summit of a dangerous mountain,she knew she was only half way home.”Reports of my survival may be exaggerated”.Her prophetic words will linger.

The great journalist Martha Gellhorn wrote, “All my reporting life, I have thrown small pebbles into a very large pond, and have no way of knowing whether any pebble caused the slightest ripple. I don’t need to worry about that. My responsibility was the effort.” Marie threw pebbles and caused ripples.

On Monday I sent her a message; “Bravo Marie. Keep your head down.” This morning I looked at the video of her body in a house in Homs. Her head down. Her voice silenced.

And we are all the poorer for that. Bless you Marie.