Former Sunday Times news editor to give insight into the world of national and international journalism

Andrew Hogg interviewing refugees in Mali who had fled the jihadist takeover of Timbuctoo in 2012.
Photo: Tom Pilston

Andrew Hogg interviewing refugees in Mali who had fled the jihadist takeover of Timbuctoo in 2012.
Photo: Tom Pilston

THE BURRAVOE branch of the Scottish Women’s Institute (SWI) is hosting what promises to be a compelling talk by one of the country’s better known journalists.

Former Sunday Times news editor Andrew Hogg will be visiting Yell early next month and has agreed to speak in the Burravoe hall on Monday 3 March at 8pm. All welcome.

Hogg was invited to Yell by local resident Adrian Brockless, who met Hogg during an evening class in philosophy he ran in Surrey about ten years ago.

During a long career, which started in the early 1970s, Hogg has worked for the Evening Standard, spent 10 years at the Sunday Times in various positions including Africa and Middle East correspondent, and then moved to the Observer from which he was sacked when the paper was taken over by the Guardian in 1993.

Hogg then spent several years as head of media at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture charity (now Freedom from Torture) before becoming head of media at the international development agency Christian Aid.

During his talk he will share some of his experiences from his journalistic career, including:

• Reporting first-hand on the fall of apartheid in South Africa and the Bosnian War
• Being the only Western reporter to travel with the Mujaheddin convoy that installed Kabul’s first Islamic government
• Investigating the Brink’s-Mat bullion raid, which inspired the hit BBC series Gold (he is interviewed in their documentary about it)
• Exposing a secretive British cult, leading to £1.5 million in abuse compensation claims
• Revealing the female Mossad agent who trapped Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu.

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Hogg said: “The talk comes about because 10 years ago or so, while living in Dorking, I attended evening classes run by Adrian Brockless in philosophy.

“While attending his classes I talked at times about what I had learned during the course of my career, and he evidently felt my experiences might be of interest to others.

“I’m hugely looking forward to my visit to Shetland. Until now, the furthest north I have been was when I hitchhiked to Cape Wrath while a poorly paid trainee reporter on a Home Counties newspaper in the 1970s.”