Lyse Doucet: ‘Our job is to make sure people don’t turn away’

Lyse Doucet is the BBC’s chief international correspondent. She has reported from Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine, among other places. Born in Canada, she started working for the BBC in west Africa in 1983.

You’re going to Lahore tomorrow – what are you doing there?
I’m going to the Lahore literary festival, which has only been going for three years. I went to the first one to make the point that Pakistan is more than terrorism. Lahore justifiably talks about itself as the literary capital. It’s politics as well as literature. But it’s also a celebration, a statement. This week there was a suicide bombing in Lahore, and so I tweeted that I was still coming. I’m going to Pakistan and then on to Gaza.

You’ve reported on several wars. Often war reporters are male, sometimes macho and a bit pompous. Do you feel comfortable in that milieu?
War reporting is like any kind of reporting. Journalists come in all shapes and sizes. Some are just interested in the bombs and the bullets, some in the social-cultural-political aspects of war, some want to cover the human cost of war. I’ve met journalists who love war, love the adrenaline rush. I don’t, and none of my closest colleagues would say they do either.

Some conflicts go on for decades. Do you ever wonder if reporting on them is futile?
Do you mean, what’s the point? Well, take Libya, it’s four years since the protest started against Gaddafi in Benghazi, which was a historic moment, an heroic moment of a people rising up and writing a story that everyone wants to tell. Now suddenly it’s become the ugliest of wars that makes you cringe at the savagery of it. In terms of us as journalists, though, it’s a privilege to tell these stories. But I think it is OK to turn away occasionally to remind yourself that it’s not a normal state of affairs. It’s hard – but let’s be clear, the story’s not about me.

There’s an argument that much of the savagery, particularly by Isis, is done to grab headlines and hijack the news agenda. Is that an issue for you?
This is a real challenge to journalists editorially. On the one hand, you don’t want to give them the oxygen of publicity, but on the other you cannot pretend it’s not happening. Because unfortunately [the videos put out by Isis] are the most grotesque form of violence and weapon of war that all of us have ever seen. So we can’t ignore it. But you should never show the beheading. Every time we do a story there’s a discussion about what we can show, and it goes through a lot of editors. Sometimes there’s anger on the ground because the reporters took a lot of risks and what they filmed is edited out.

Do you have a particular philosophy for war reporting?
I look at war as relationships among people, relationships between neighbours, friends, mothers and fathers and children. For me, that is the best way to convey a reality that none of us would recognise or ever want to live in. I’m a big believer in the small story telling the big story. So a man in the city of Homs who has a piano shop, you tell those small stories and they draw people into a larger more complicated story. I always say you don’t have to dramatise a dramatic story. Just tell it like it is. That’s enough. Our job is to make sure people don’t turn away.

Do you ever get scared? And if you do, what do you do to conquer that fear?
There is no war worth dying for but there are stories worth taking risks for. The Catch 22 is that in the wars of our time you sometimes don’t know the risk until it’s too late. I’m not going into northern Syria now. No one is. It’s not just a mistake or bad luck if you get kidnapped – it’s a certainty it will happen. I mostly go to places where I have a comfort level. I’ve been working in Afghanistan since 1988 and in the Middle East since 1994. You know the highways and byways, and you know the signals. For me, the really important thing is that, almost without exception, no matter where I go, I work with someone I’ve known for a long time.

Has reporting made you more or less political?
It all comes down to politics but my job is not to take sides. I used to always quote the Italian Marxist Gramsci, who had this great expression: “optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect”. Then I thought there must be some other way of looking at the world, and I started subscribing to what Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, that we are prisoners of hope. More and more I believe the journalism I want to do is not taking sides, but I have no hesitation taking the sides of the people, or the children. Because they’re caught in the middle. That’s my politics. Humanitarian politics.

You were in Minsk last week, going to Lahore tomorrow. What toll does reporting take on the rest of your life?
I tend to think of the world as a country and London as its capital. Travelling is a state of mind. Some people get really stressed out when they have to pack and get on a plane. I don’t think of it as stressful. When I have dinner in Kabul, I never think, “Oh, I have to get home to my personal life.” My personal life is also there.

What changes have you seen in reporting since you started in the 80s?
The first war I covered was in Chad, and I would go and hang out there for a month. There was no email, and hardly any telephones or telex machines, so you could do that. Now they need to know where you are at every moment. But back then you needed a truck of equipment. Now I can go over live from the centre of Damascus with my telephone. It’s very exciting. That’s been the biggest change, and also that we have to do TV, radio, online and social media. It can be demanding.

What do you do to relax?
I read, swim, meditate, spend time with friends, cook, walk. I’m very interested in music, especially music from different cultures. I love watching Graham Norton, cooking programmes. I meet family whenever I can. In a really fast-paced world, you really treasure the moments. Enjoy them and try not to look at your email.

Tell me something about yourself that’s not widely known.
I grew up as a curler. I was on my provincial curling team and went to the winter games in Canada. I have a yellow sweater representing my province in curling. I haven’t done it in a long while. There are not many ice rinks around, especially ones with blue and red circles.