Jeremy Bowen | |
|---|---|
 Bowen in 2012 | |
| Born | Jeremy Francis John Bowen 6 February 1960 Cardiff, Wales |
| Education | |
| Title | International Editor of BBC News (2022–present) |
| Spouse | Julia Williams |
| Children | 2 |
Jeremy Francis John Bowen (born 6 February 1960) is a Welsh journalist and television presenter.
He was the BBC's Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem between 1995 and 2000[2] and the BBC Middle East editor from 2005 to 2022, before being appointed the International Editor of BBC News in August 2022.[3]
Jeremy Francis John Bowen was born on 6 February 1960 in Cardiff. He was educated at De La Salle School, Rumney, Cardiff High School, University College London (BA History) and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. His father Gareth reported on the 1966 Aberfan coal slurry disaster for the BBC, and became editor of news at Radio Wales.[4]
He joined the BBC in 1984 and has been a war correspondent for much of his career, starting with El Salvador in 1989.[5] He has reported from more than 70 countries,[6] predominantly in the Middle East and the Balkans.
During the Gulf War he was an eye-witness to the bodies being removed from the Al Amiriyan air raid shelter in Baghdad shelter, where hundreds of civilians had been killed.[7] Bowen reported that the casualties were women, children and older men. There were no military uniforms.[8] The Pentagon and the UK Ministry of Defence affirmed that it was a command centre. During the disinformation campaign, the Daily Star compared Bowen to Lord Haw Haw who had broadcast from Berlin during the WW2. Bowen received a substantial sum for libel as a result.[9]
He reported from Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Bosnian War there, and from Kosovo during the 1999 conflict, during which he was robbed at gunpoint by bandits.[10]
Bowen has been under fire on assignment a number of times. In what he was later to describe as the pivotal moment of his life, a colleague and friend was killed on 23 May 2000 in Lebanon.[4] This took place while Bowen was covering the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) pullout from Lebanon: Bowen's car came under tank fire from the IDF and his "fixer" and driver was killed.[11]
Bowen and his cameraman escaped, but Bowen suffered post traumatic stress disorder and retreated from the frontline, moving to work in the studio as a presenter,[4] hosting the daily news and entertainment morning show Breakfast with Sophie Raworth between 2000 and 2002. He was also a guest host on the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You, and presented the BBC's 2001 three-part series Son of God, an investigation into the life of Jesus.[12] In 2002 he presented Moses, a similar documentary that chronicled the life of Moses.[13]
Given the chance to cover the 2003 invasion of Iraq from Baghdad, he turned it down.[4] Nonetheless, he returned to the field in March 2003 as a special correspondent,[14] during which time he covered the death of Pope John Paul II.
He became the BBC's first Middle East Editor when the position was created in June 2005 after the 2004 Balen Report on the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict[15] to provide a broader perspective on wider Middle East issues[16] and to add context to the reporting of events on the ground.[17]
In 2005 he published the book Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East.[18]
On 11 May 2008 Bowen and his camera operator again came under fire in Mount Lebanon. Nobody was injured and the incident was caught on camera.[19]
In April 2009 the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust published a report on three complaints, including one by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, brought against two news items involving Bowen.[20] The complaints included 24 allegations of breaching BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality, of which three were fully or partially upheld.[21] The BBC Trust's censure was based on articles about Har Homa in the 1960s, how the Six-Day War affected the Middle East and an article on the aftermath of that war.[22] Although there was no finding of anti-Israel bias against Bowen, the BBC Trust said that he should have used clearer language and been more precise in some aspects of the piece.[23]
The BBC Trust accepted that for a claim that was found to be lacking in accuracy that Bowen had been provided with the information by an authoritative source.[23] A website article[24] was amended and Bowen did not face any disciplinary measures.[6] Bowen voiced opposition to the censure, calling it a result of a "campaign group" whom he called "the enemies of impartiality".[22]
In February 2011 Bowen became the first British journalist to interview Muammar Gaddafi since the start of the 2011 Libyan civil war against him and the government.[25] As the conflict progressed at least two of Bowen's notebooks were either lost or stolen. One of these notebooks was subsequently found in the remains of a military convoy, which the rebel force that attacked it said contained Gaddafi's son, Khamis. The notebook contained both Bowen's words and a number of notes in Arabic detailing military manoeuvres and a list of persons to be detained.[26][27]
On 5 July 2013 Bowen was reporting for the BBC on the protests in Egypt regarding the former President Morsi when he was shot in the head with shotgun pellets. He escaped without major injury, and was taken away by his colleagues and bandaged up.[28]
He was one of the few journalists inside Syria reporting on the civil war. In February 2015 he spoke with President Bashar al-Assad about the continuing Syrian conflict, during an exclusive BBC interview.[29]
As of 2017 Bowen receives £150,000 – £199,999 as a BBC contributor and editor.[30][needs update]
Since March 2022 Bowen has been reporting from on the ground in Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War.[31][needs update]
In October 2023, the BBC reported on the Israel-Hamas War, including a report on an incident at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. Bowen was the editor responsible for overseeing this coverage, and has been criticized for the BBC's inaccurate reporting on the incident for repeatedly implying that Israel bombed the hospital, destroyed the facility, and killed 500 people.[32][33] In the days following the incident, Western intelligence agencies stated that the fire was most likely the result of a misfired rocket by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a rocket attack on Israeli civilians.[34] While the PIJ rocket did result in deaths and injuries, it did not "flatten" the facility as claimed by the BBC, and it resulted in substantially fewer deaths than claimed in BBC reports.[35][36] The BBC retracted the majority of claims made by Bowen's reporters.[37][38]
Bowen lives in Camberwell, South London, with his partner Julia Williams, also a BBC journalist. They have a son and a daughter.[39]
He is a supporter of Cardiff City Football Club.[40]
On 1 April 2019 Bowen announced that he had undergone treatment to remove a tumour in his bowel.[41]
