In his early days as a BBC reporter, Jeremy Bowen faced an unexpected obstacle: his own hair. It lacked the decorum that Britain’s national broadcaster expected; his moustache also raised eyebrows. After he reported on the murder of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, his bosses told him that he’d once again looked “a disgrace”.
The short-term solution was hair gel and a scrunchie: he is one of the few men whose career benefited from a ponytail. The long-term solution becomes evident soon after Bowen, now 66, enters the pub. He takes off his hat and laughs at his near baldness.
What really propelled his career, of course, was his journalism. For 41 years, Bowen has sought to represent the best of BBC News: fearless, informed and analytical. He reported from Baghdad during the Gulf war, from the sieges of Sarajevo and Mostar, and from the front lines in Ukraine. The war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia called him as a witness. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad asked him to explain what it was like to be bombed by the US.