Melanie Marshall spent over 20 years as a BBC foreign news journalist and war correspondent, covering the most volatile conflict zones on the planet. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Honduras. Her job was to get the team in, get the story out, and get everyone home safely. No playbook. Just problem solving under pressure, sometimes under fire.

What most people don't see when they turn on the news is everything that happened before those two minutes of footage aired. The permissions that were never granted. The checkpoints that wouldn't budge. The moments where the only way through was to outlast whoever was standing in your way.

In this episode Melanie pulls back the curtain on what war zone journalism and foreign news production actually looks like from the inside. She talks about negotiating access to an MS-13-controlled prison in Honduras, staring down the black flag of Islamic State in northern Iraq, and what two decades of conflict reporting taught her about staying present when everything around you is falling apart.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation with a BBC war correspondent. Part 2 is where she shares her No Ordinary Monday story.

Connect with Melanie:

WEBSITE: melanieamarshall.com

LINKEDIN: linkedin.com/in/melanie-marshall-237a641

YOUTUBE: youtube.com/@MDMarshall

TIKTOK: @melaniemspeaks

X/Twitter: @mdmarshall

SUBSTACK: substack.com/@imrama

CREDITS

Guest: Melanie Marshall. Former BBC Foreign News Journalist and Producer, Hostile Environment Specialist, 20+ years covering conflict zones across Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia and beyond.

Host, Producer and Editor: Chris Baron

Music: Paulyudin, Music_Unlimited and Saavane

Sound effects: Pixabay and FreeSound

Podcast Access: https://pods.link/noordinarymonday

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Topics: foreign news journalism, BBC, war zone reporting, hostile environment journalism, conflict reporting, news production, Iraq, Afghanistan, Honduras, MS-13, Islamic State, media industry, storytelling, press freedom, resilience