Old School Journalism

Veteran Brussels journalist, Martin Jay has had an interesting and varied career as a freelancer, which included setting up The Sprout, an irreverent and provocative look at the Brussels scene.

In his new book, Girls, Guns and Gonzo, he reviews his earlier career where he visited some dangerous places to get the stories where others feared to tread. This included hanging around with Somali militias, Rwandan refugees and East European gangsters. It is a highly charged and edgy atmosphere that he captures in words and pictures. As an old time reporter, Jay uses conventional 35mm film and the photos are often grainy and harsh, but show some of the urgency and adrenaline charged mindset of someone out to get the story, whatever it takes. Other portraits, from African street kids, to elegant models are revealing about their subjects.

In his introduction, Martin Bell OBE says it “is not the sort of book that journalists write anymore” as the modern reporters “retreat into the fortified compounds and green zones abroad, and the fluff and froth of celebrity journalism at home.”

Does this book, as Bell says, “belong to a vanished age”, or is it part of a tradition of reportage that refuses to be crushed by the accountants and health and safety officers in the modern newsrooms? The reader will surely hope that independent journalism stays alive and that the reporters do also. how tough is it to get the story from war zones and failed states? This book answers that question.