Jeremy Bowen is a Welsh journalist and TV presenter. He has worked for the BBC for nearly 40 years. He has reporting from more than 70 countries, primarily as a war correspondent.
Since 2005 Jeremy has been the BBC’s Middle East Editor. As of April 2022, he has become a leading reporter on the military situation in Ukraine, reporting from the ground.
Career
Jeremy joined the BBC in 1984 as a news trainee. After spells in the radio newsroom and as a television news correspondent, he became Geneva correspondent for radio news in 1987.
Jeremy began reporting on conflict from the frontline in 1989 in El Salvador. He reported extensively from the Bosnian war in the early 1990’s and from the Kosovo conflict at the end of that decade.
Jeremy was the BBC’s Middle East correspondent from 1995 until 2000 when he began presenting the new BBC One morning show Breakfast.
Jeremy also guest hosted Have I Got News for You and presented documentaries about the lives of Jesus and Moses. He also appeared in the first series of Celebrity Mastermind with the Arab-Israeli Six Day War as his specialist subject.
In 2003 Jeremy returned to reporting from the field as BBC News Special Correspondent before being appointed the broadcaster’s first Middle East Editor in 2005.
Books
In ‘Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East’ Jeremy provides his historical analysis of how the outcome of this short but decisive conflict has echoed through the decades since. Published in 2005.
‘War Stories’, published in 2006, charts a decade and a half of Jeremy’s reporting from the frontline of conflicts across the globe.
In 2009 Jeremy contributed to a children’s book by Michael Morpurgo ‘The Kites are Flying’ about a journalist’s meeting with a traumatised Palestinian boy.
‘Arab Uprisings: The People Want the Fall of the Regime’ looks at the causes of popular uprisings across the Middle East and captures the thoughts and feelings of the people involved. Published in 2012.
Based in part on his acclaimed podcast ‘Our man in the Middle East” Jeremy’s latest book ‘The Making of the Modern Middle East’ is published in September 2022. It explores the region through its history, the ordinary men and women too often on the frontline of conflict and the leaders who have taken them there.
Awards
Jeremy was made a Fellow of University College London in 2005 and is an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University, University of South Wales, Cardiff Metropolitan University and Aberystwyth University. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences by Nottingham Trent University in 2014.
Jeremy has won a host of awards for his broadcasting including:
New York Television Festival 1995 - Best News Correspondent
1993 Monte Carlo International TV Festival Silver Nymph for Bosnia war coverage
Royal Television Society awards for Best Breaking News Report 1996, Specialist Journalist of the year 2013, Television Journalist of the year 2014 and Interview of the year 2016.
Sony Gold award for News Story of the Year on the arrest of Saddam Hussein.
Part of the BBC teams that won a BAFTA for their Kosovo coverage.
International Emmy 2006 for BBC News', for its coverage, led by Bowen, of the 2006 Lebanon war.
Three Prix Bayeux Calvados awards for war reporting.
2012 Charles Wheeler Award for achievements in broadcast journalism
2012 Peace Through Media Award at the 8th annual International Media Awards.
2013 Peabody Award for reporting Syria's war
2013 News and Documentary Emmy for Syria reporting
2014 BAFTA Cymru Siân Phillips award
2015 James Cameron Memorial Award
2015 Frontline Club Award for Yemen reporting
Personal Life
Jeremy lives in south London with his wide. They have two children.