Today marks 37 years since 80 reporters and cameramen, including nine Britons, were allowed to leave Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, after communist forces had captured the city on the 29th April. War reporting has featured prominently in the news recently, particularly with the death of Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin in Syria.
What exactly is it that drives war reporters to keep going to war zones, despite injury and trauma? Well, as Michael Nicholson, author of A State of War Exists, told us, ‘It’s in the blood. Once you've done it once, you have to keep doing it’. We spoke to Michael about his favourite war reporters, why the fuss over the deaths of war reporters is overdone, and why he's very happy to be at the end of his career, rather than the beginning.