Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment

News reporter Marie Colvin, an American war correspondent for The Sunday Times in London, died in February 2012 in a Syrian attack. Conroy, a British photojournalist, was with Colvin on assignment at the time of her death and recounts those final weeks in her life, delivering a paean to his dear friend, a remarkable woman whose "reputation as a hard-arsed war reporter%E2%80%94one of the toughest, best and bravest of our time%E2%80%94preceded her." Her decades-long career landed her across the globe in places such as East Timor, Chechnya, Baghdad and Sri Lanka. She had a "superb sense of the absurd" as well as an "easy-going manner and effortless charm." Most of all, Colvin believed strongly in the power and responsibility of journalists to hold governments to account and to "[bear] witness to the plight of ordinary civilians%E2%80%A6." Writing also of his preparations for Syria and his own experiences once there, Conroy highlights the emotional toll war-zone reporting can take on journalists' families. He describes ways he and his colleagues navigated battlegrounds, "walking a tightrope between life and death on a windy day." Conroy's visceral account is provides readers with a greater appreciation for the work of war correspondents and insight into the sacrifices they make. (Oct.)