Clare Hollingsworth, British Journalist Extraordinaire

A couple of years ago, Time magazine did a story on this remarkable women who had just turned 105. She’s the oldest living journalist having a relationship with them, 70 years, after she got the scope of the century, the Nazi invasion of Poland. When the British General Montgomery banned women journalist on the front lines, Clare signed up with Time and found her way to Egypt and the bloody Algerian war around 1942.

Two reasons her story is important. One, she is a woman with incredible courage. Second, at a time when journalism and journalists are under fire, we need to remember their importance in reporting the truth by being on the front lines.

 

Clare didn’t sit in a cushy office, in front of a computer “making stuff up.” She had her feet on the ground, reporting what see saw going on around her. Unfortunately, news today is filtered through many lenses and unless we are diligent in who and how it is being reported, the truth gets undermined. When ego and money influence what we hear and what we see, then journalism fails in “truth-seeking.” Freedom of the press remains one of the most important human rights we have.

Another importance Ms. Hollingsworth played was by infiltrating what became known as the Cambridge Five: five trusted establishment figures who had been recruited as Soviet spies, had attended Cambridge University in the 1930s and had managed to exist undetected for decades. When she first connected dots of the men accused, her editor refused to run the story thinking it was too sensational. However, two months later he did. This was in the early 1960’s and during the “cold war.” A movie was made of it and documentaries.

In the early 1970’s Clare moved permanently to Hong Kong, covering Asia for the rest of her career. She is a prodigy, one of those extraordinary people who has not only recorded history but helped to make it. ‘She was a pioneer among women journalists, and among the first generation of women war correspondents, who proved that they needed no example from men either in reporting gifts or courage.”

 

Do your due diligence and know the people spinning the news. All our freedoms are at stake. You have the power to get the facts. And Vote! Primaries are now!