Breaking my addiction to war

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fergal Keane's work as a war correspondent was destroying him, but he couldn't stop.

It was his job as a BBC journalist to help the audience make sense of the madness of war, but he knew there was another more troubling reason he was drawn to these violent situations. They gave him something he couldn't get anywhere else in the same way. A massive rush of adrenaline and a huge dose of validation. Fergal knew this compulsive tendency wasn't healthy, but he couldn't stay away from the frontlines.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: May Cameron and Harry Graham Sound Design: Joel Cox Editor: Munazza Khan

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:06.9	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.1	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:13.7	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history.
0:20.7	We're still looking for Lucan.
0:22.1	It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime.
0:25.9	I'm Alex Fontunzelman.
0:27.3	This is The Lucan Obsession.
0:29.2	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Love, Janessa, a brand new true crime podcast from the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts.
0:38.9	It's a story about love, deceit and survival, and it's available now.
0:43.8	Find out more at the end of this podcast.
0:50.3	Now, I only speak for myself here.
0:52.2	I'm not speaking for all war correspondent.
0:55.6	But there came a point from me where I'm, you know, you're looking at this terrible scene
1:00.3	and you're with the cameraman and I'm, have we got that shot?
1:02.4	Have we got that interview?
1:03.7	And one part of you is thinking, no, this is awesome.
1:08.2	And the other part is thinking, my God, this is incredible material.
1:12.5	You know, it's really going to have an impact.
1:18.1	Less about that sense of adrenaline of being feeling incredibly alive when death was at its closest.
	...

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