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Was sorry to hear of the death today of top war correspondent Brian Barron. He was the original foreign correspondent. The stuff of legend. The kind of guy you might read about in one of Graham Green's books...or the books of Somerset Maugham. The lonely guy in the far off room, typing his story out on the ancient Olivetti in the corner, his bullet riddled reports coming in from the rice fields, his war torn reports coming in from the desert. Brian Barron struck one like this, he was everywhere and done it all. His tough reports on Vietnam were shocking, brilliant and dangerous. From then onwards he was the frontline face of the BBC. And it really was frontline in those days of Vietnam. The reports came back unhindered by flack jackets, bullet proof vests, tin helmets, or niceties.
Vietnam was the era of the real correspondent. Don McCullin's amazing pictures with nothing held back, real blood and guts war, grim and nasty, death and glory. Now wars are managed by the PR media management outfits and its not quite the same thing. No longer the stuff of journalistic legend. Even the wars are sanitised by spin now.
Brian Barron lived through all that the Vietnam and the Iraqi wars could throw at him, and died at home peacefully from cancer. A great guy. He was 69.