Battling for News

Anne Sebba presents a compelling history of the struggles of women to be admitted to professional journalism and so obtain the right to report from places where they were felt to have no place - most notably, war-zones. Sebba, herself a former Reuters reporter, recounts the evolution of the woman reporter, from Miss Wreford during the Risorgimento and Lady Florence Dixie at the Boer War, through pioneers such as Virginia Cowles and Martha Gellhorn, to the recent heroics of Marie Colvin, remembered in a new preface to this edition. "An important book because it contradicts the myths that is it harder for women to work in difficult situations; that women only report the hospitals and orphanages side of war; that it is easier to get hired in the first place". (Janine di Giovanni, "Sunday Times"). "Admirable [and] well-rearched". (Jeremy Harding, "London Review of Books"). "Sebba presents a coherent picture of women fighting not only for their own rights but for the rights of newspaper readers". (Roy Greenslade, "Guardian").