"There are still some terrific people out there doing the business. Marie Colvin was not the only one. Bill Neely of ITN is another. But what has happened is that as it has become more dangerous, there has been this tendency to retreat to fortified compounds away from the front line – hotel rooftops, TV station rooftops, building a platform next to a couple of palm trees 20 miles from the action. Then television becomes performing art.
"Yes, it tends to be done by good-looking, crisply dressed young people. But there are folk still out there who continue to do it in the old-fashioned way – Anthony Loyd at The Times is one of the best. Celebrity journalism is a relatively new phenomenon over the last 20 years. I think it’s fairly deplorable, but we live in a celebrity culture." — Martin Bell, a former BBC war reporter.
