Through Her Eyes

In Through Her Eyes Australian women correspondents tell their own stories from the frontline – covering the breaking news, the issues and the events that are changing the world. They tell of Russian tanks and Ukrainian mothers fleeing with their children, vicious Afghan warlords, anti-government rebels in Central Africa, terrorist attacks in the United States, and the chaos faced by ordinary people caught up in disasters and political upheaval.

While a woman strapping on a reporters’ flak jacket is now a common sight, there was a time when they were locked out of the big stories because of their gender. Unlike their male counterparts, they needed single-minded determination to score a plum assignment or win a posting to a foreign bureau.

Through Her Eyes tells of the exhilaration that comes with a big story but also the dangers, the risks, the struggle and the big issues women still face, from vicious media trolling to threats of sexual violence.

Through Her Eyes includes well-known women correspondents for major media organisations inside and outside Australia including the ABC, BBC, SBS, CNN, The Associated Press of America, UPI, Reuters, The Times of London, Al Jazeera, China Global Television Network, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Australian Financial Review.

About the Editors

Melissa Roberts covered China for Time Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and The Daily Mail as a freelance journalist from 1988 to 1990 covering the chaotic years around the Tiananmen Square uprising. She has worked as a staff correspondent for The Australian in Sydney and Papua New Guinea, reported on federal politics from the press gallery, and covered Singapore and Australia for Newsweek magazine. Melissa has written five children's books and is co-editor of The Beijing Bureau, published by Hardie Grant Books in 2021.

Trevor Watson is a journalist and author with more than half a century of national and international experience. He has been a regular visitor to China since 1979 and was based in Beijing as Bureau Chief for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 1988-1990.

He was also variously based as ABC correspondent in Singapore, Papua New Guinea, India and Thailand, and covered the South Pacific. Trevor is the author of ‘Tremble and Obey, An ABC Correspondent's Account of the Bloody Beijing Spring’ which focuses on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He is also the recipient for a Walkley Award and The United Nations media prize for excellence in journalism. He was Director of Media for the University of Sydney’s Business School for ten years.