John Irvine (journalist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Irvine is a British television journalist.
Irvine was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After attending Campbell College, he went on to study journalism at the College of Business Studies, graduating in 1983. Before joining ITN in 1994, he worked for the Tyrone Constitution and UTV.
After two years as a producer, he was appointed as ITN's main Ireland Correspondent in 1996. During his time in Northern Ireland he covered the Shankill Road and Remembrance Day bombs.
In 2001 Irvine moved to the Middle East, where he was based in Jerusalem and covered the Israeli Army's occupation of Ramallah. From there he moved to Iraq to cover the 2003 Invasion. It is for this coverage that he is most well known, broadcasting nightly reports for ITV News from Baghdad during the intense aerial bombardment. Irvine won the Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year award in 2003 for his coverage of the invasion. He was the first foreign correspondent to greet the arriving US Army.[1]
Following the war, he transferred to Bangkok, where he was ITV's Asia Correspondent. He is now ITN's Washington Correspondent and currently lives in Washington DC with his wife and two children.
On December 26, 2004 Irvine was holidaying on Koh Yao island in Phuket with his family when the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake hit. Although unhurt, Irvine along with his wife and two young children were washed 50m inshore by the tsunami.[2]
[edit] Quotes
Commenting on US tanks entering Baghdad on April 9, 2003:
"A war of three weeks has brought an end to decades of Iraqi misery."[3]
"This man is as flash as a Rat with a gold tooth." - referring to Uday Hussain.
"The wave caught up with us ... and it washed us, I guess, another 50 yards into a mangrove swamp." - on surviving the Indian Ocean earthquake.
