A CBC reporter looks back

On the Ground: My life as a foreign correspondent

Brian Stewart
Simon & Schuster, 2025.

Anchors and foreign correspondents were familiar names when I began paying attention to the news as a young person during the 1980s. Brian Stewart stood out with coverage from far-off places like Ethiopia, Northern Ireland, Poland and Afghanistan. His reporting on The Journal went beyond sensational headlines, providing deeper insight into world events.

References to entering a church for solace, opening Gideon Bibles in his hotel room and the spiritual toll of his work as a foreign correspondent hint at his personal faith journey. In 2004, addressing graduates at Toronto’s Knox College, he said, “I’ve never reached a war zone, or famine group or crisis anywhere where some church organization was not there long before me.” He admires care workers and other figures motivated by faith and calls them “sturdy, remarkable souls.” For a time, he aspired to take a leave from journalism to do such front-line work, but charities simply wanted him to raise funds.

Articulate storytelling takes us from early days in Montreal and the U.K. to global hotspots, complete with over 30 photographs. Several short interlude chapters delve deeper into topics (e.g., conspiracy theories), encounter famous people (Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela) or recount tense experiences (flying in a bush plane, Lebanese security checkpoints).

Stewart connects his reflections on time in fraught, life-and-death situations to the lack of psychological support for foreign correspondents. He ultimately sought treatment for “moral injury” PTSD. His musings about his life and world events, now as an octogenarian, provide valuable perspectives on the complexities of cultures and conflicts, and on the changing role of news media.