On the Ground: My Life as a Foreign Correspondent by Brian Stewart: REVIEW
Synopsis
Brian Stewart talks about his experiences as a foreign correspondent for CBC and NBC from the 1970s to early 2000s.
My Review
I’ve seen Brian Stewart’s face on my TV my whole life, coming from an avid CBC-watching household, so I was interested to pick up his memoir the minute I heard he was publishing one. I actually had no idea, though, that he had made such a major impact on journalism and the world in general throughout his career as a foreign correspondent.
Did I know that this Canadian journalist was the first to be allowed into Ethiopia during the 80’s famine, and the one who got the infamous footage of the disaster that spurred the world to action? No, and I’m kind of ashamed of my ignorance. Did I know that Stewart kept in touch with the family of the little girl, Birhan Woldu, whose starving face launched a thousand relief missions, and that he supported them and enabled Birhan to get an education? No, but for that I blame Bob Geldof for never mentioning it when they brought her on stage during the Live 8 anniversary concert.
Anyway. This memoir is full of enlightening information like that, and there’s real compassion showing through his journalistic professionalism as he writes. I was too young to be paying much attention to the news at the height of Stewart’s career, so I learned a lot about 80s and 90s world events from this book. And I gained a deeper appreciation both for Stewart and for CBC, who truly changed the way the world responds to foreign disasters.
Canadian scandals
To my surprise, though, Stewart didn’t limit himself to foreign postings, but also dug up a lot of investigative dirt right here in Canada. He was the one who uncovered the depth of the RCMP mail-opening scandal in 1977 and triggered the founding of CSIS, Canada’s civilian security service.
Unfortunately, this inadvertently led to Canada’s worst terrorist attack, the Sikh bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985. The RCMP and CSIS refused to cooperate with each other for the first few years of CSIS’s existence, letting important information go unshared between them, which Stewart himself discovered when asked to investigate the Air India attack. It could have been prevented if they’d acted like adults. But I’m digressing again.
Suffice it to say, I found these sections of the memoir just as informative and engaging as the sections following his exciting adventures in war-torn countries abroad.
Mental health
I also appreciated that he talked quite a bit about mental health, and how foreign correspondents deal (or don’t deal) with on-the-job trauma. Stewart was one of the first journalists whose long-term mental health effects were studied and learned from and used to help and diagnose others. I’m so glad that he included that in his memoir, because no one can run into danger to film human atrocities as often as foreign correspondents do and come away completely unscathed. I think that’s an important message, and he delivered it well. We all need to respect and be grateful for those journalists who risk their lives to bring us the truth. It ain’t a picnic for them.
My one quibble
The only thing I didn’t like about this memoir was the periodic apologism for Conrad Black. I get it, they grew up together. Sometimes your childhood friends do weird things you don’t approve of, but loyalty dictates that you still have their back. And maybe this friendship is public knowledge, so he felt he had to address it, I don’t know. It just felt kind of out of place. Black had little if any relevance to what Stewart was talking about, yet there he’d be. I personally am glad to know that they disagree on the subject of the current US president, but… did he need to tell us that? Did he need to mention it at all? I just wish he’d left it unsaid.
Conclusion
All in all, though, this is a fantastic memoir. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in world events, Canadian events, the 1970s-90s era, or just memoirs about interesting people.
You can buy On the Ground here on Bookshop.org*, or look for it wherever you get books.
*As an affiliate, I’ll receive a small commission from any purchase made through this link.