Meet our Honorary Graduates - Lindsey Hilsum

Lindsey Hilsum was awarded a Doctor of Letters at the University of Exeter on Tuesday 18th July 2017. Lindsey Hilsum is the International Editor of Channel 4 News and the author of Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution. She has reported from six continents, most recently from the US on the election of Donald Trump and from Europe on the refugee crisis as well as terror attacks in France and conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Mali.

During her career, Lindsey has covered the major wars and refugee movements of the past three decades, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2011 she witnessed the Arab Spring uprisings in Libya and Egypt. She has also reported extensively from Iran and Zimbabwe, and was Channel 4 News China Correspondent from 2006 to 2008. During the 2004 US assault on Falluja, she was embedded with a frontline marine unit, and in 1994, was the only English-speaking foreign correspondent in Rwanda when the genocide started.

Lindsey has been Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year, and won the Charles Wheeler Award and the James Cameron Award as well as awards from One World Media, Amnesty International and BAFTA. Her writing has been featured in The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer and Granta, among other publications. Before becoming a journalist, she was an aid worker, first with OXFAM in Latin America and then with UNICEF in Africa. She is currently writing the biography of the late war correspondent Marie Colvin. She graduated from the University of Exeter in 1980 with a Joint Honours BA in Spanish and French.