Orla Guerin
Encyclopedia
Orla Guerin MBE
(born 15 May 1966 in Dublin) is an Irish
journalist. She is a BBC Middle East correspondent, based in Jerusalem. She has extensive experience, having reported from many areas including the West Coast of the USA, Kosovo
, the Republic of Macedonia
, the Basque Country
in northern Spain
, and Moscow
, where she covered the Kursk submarine disaster
in 2000.
She was removed by BBC director general Mark Thompson as the BBC's Middle East correspondent after a 2005 trip to Israel, and became the corporation's Africa
correspondent, based in Johannesburg
in 2006.
Guerin first came to attention as a journalist and foreign correspondent with RTÉ News. A journalism graduate from Dublin Institute of Technology
(DIT), Guerin joined Raidió Teilifís Éireann
(RTÉ) in 1987 and was their correspondent in Eastern Europe
from 1990–1994, travelling widely and reporting from Eastern and Central Europe
, the former Soviet Union
, Yugoslavia
and Sarajevo
.
She left RTÉ to run as a Labour Party
candidate in the 1994 elections to the European parliament
. A political novice, Guerin had been hand-picked by then Labour Party leader Dick Spring
. Even though she was not selected at the party convention, Spring insisted that she be added to the ballot. Vilified as a "parachute" candidate, she did not win a seat (although she did poll relatively well). She joined the BBC in 1995.
In 2003, Guerin married Reuters
correspondent Michael Georgy.
in Film Studies
from University College Dublin
(UCD).
won her a Jacob's Award in 1992. In 2002, she was awarded an honorary degree
from the University of Essex
, England
and won the Broadcaster of the Year Award from the London Press Club. In 2003 she was awarded the News and Factual Award by Women in Film and Television UK. She was awarded an MBE
(Hons) for services to broadcasting. In 2009, she was awarded honorary degrees from both of Northern Ireland's universities, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster
.
. In 2004, the Israeli government wrote to the BBC accusing her of a "deep-seated bias against Israel" in a report on a teenage would-be suicide bomber. A year later the Muslim Council of Britain
accused the BBC as a whole of pro-Israeli bias. Guerin remained as the BBC's Middle East correspondent until January 2006, when she became the Africa correspondent. She was replaced in the Middle East by BBC veteran Jeremy Bowen who
announced that he would only refer to Israel and the Palestinians rather than Israel and Palestine. Former Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke
wrote: "I have no doubt that the decision by the BBC to pull their Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents around the world. However it was pretty bad timing to announce it within days of Director General Mark Thompson's visit to Israel where he had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
".
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
(born 15 May 1966 in Dublin) is an Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
journalist. She is a BBC Middle East correspondent, based in Jerusalem. She has extensive experience, having reported from many areas including the West Coast of the USA, Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
, the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, the Basque Country
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
in northern Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, where she covered the Kursk submarine disaster
Russian submarine Kursk explosion
On 12 August 2000, the Russian Oscar II class submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea after an explosion. The investigation showed that a leak of hydrogen peroxide in a torpedo led to explosion of its fuel, causing the submarine to hit the bottom which in turn triggered the detonation of further...
in 2000.
She was removed by BBC director general Mark Thompson as the BBC's Middle East correspondent after a 2005 trip to Israel, and became the corporation's Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
correspondent, based in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
in 2006.
Guerin first came to attention as a journalist and foreign correspondent with RTÉ News. A journalism graduate from Dublin Institute of Technology
Dublin Institute of Technology
Dublin Institute of Technology was established officially in 1992 under the but had been previously set up in 1978 on an ad-hoc basis. The institution can trace its origins back to 1887 with the establishment of various technical institutions in Dublin, Ireland...
(DIT), Guerin joined Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
(RTÉ) in 1987 and was their correspondent in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
from 1990–1994, travelling widely and reporting from Eastern and Central Europe
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
, the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
and Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
.
She left RTÉ to run as a Labour Party
Labour Party (Ireland)
The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in the Republic of Ireland. The Labour Party was founded in 1912 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, by James Connolly, James Larkin and William X. O'Brien as the political wing of the Irish Trade Union Congress. Unlike the other main Irish...
candidate in the 1994 elections to the European parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
. A political novice, Guerin had been hand-picked by then Labour Party leader Dick Spring
Dick Spring
Richard "Dick" Spring is an Irish businessman and former politician. He was first elected as a Labour Party Teachta Dála in 1981 and retained his seat until 2002. He became leader of the Labour Party in 1982, and held this position until 1997...
. Even though she was not selected at the party convention, Spring insisted that she be added to the ballot. Vilified as a "parachute" candidate, she did not win a seat (although she did poll relatively well). She joined the BBC in 1995.
In 2003, Guerin married Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
correspondent Michael Georgy.
Journalistic qualifications
Guerin qualified as a journalist in 1985 with a Certificate in Journalism from the College of Commerce in Dublin. She also holds a Master's degreeMaster's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in Film Studies
Film studies
Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to films. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies...
from University College Dublin
University College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
(UCD).
Awards
Guerin's reports from Eastern Europe for RTÉ RadioRTÉ Radio
RTÉ Radio is a department of Irish national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann. RTÉ Radio broadcasts four analogue channels and five digital channels....
won her a Jacob's Award in 1992. In 2002, she was awarded an honorary degree
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
from the University of Essex
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and won the Broadcaster of the Year Award from the London Press Club. In 2003 she was awarded the News and Factual Award by Women in Film and Television UK. She was awarded an MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(Hons) for services to broadcasting. In 2009, she was awarded honorary degrees from both of Northern Ireland's universities, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster
University of Ulster
The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
.
Accusation of bias
Guerin was accused by some of biased reporting on the Israeli–Palestinian conflictIsraeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
. In 2004, the Israeli government wrote to the BBC accusing her of a "deep-seated bias against Israel" in a report on a teenage would-be suicide bomber. A year later the Muslim Council of Britain
accused the BBC as a whole of pro-Israeli bias. Guerin remained as the BBC's Middle East correspondent until January 2006, when she became the Africa correspondent. She was replaced in the Middle East by BBC veteran Jeremy Bowen who
announced that he would only refer to Israel and the Palestinians rather than Israel and Palestine. Former Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke
Greg Dyke
Gregory "Greg" Dyke is a British media executive, journalist and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing 'tabloid' television to British broadcasting, and reviving the ratings of TV-am...
wrote: "I have no doubt that the decision by the BBC to pull their Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents around the world. However it was pretty bad timing to announce it within days of Director General Mark Thompson's visit to Israel where he had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....
".
External links
- BBC press office profile of Orla Guerin Retrieved 2011-11-21