War Reporting for Cowards: Between Iraq and a Hard Place - Softcover

"'Chris Ayres has invented a new genre: a rip-roaring tale of adventure and derring-don't' - Toby Young, author of How To Lose Friends and Alienate People 'Of the new, or unexpected, stars the war created, my pick would be Chris Ayres, who emerged to become a stunning reporter in Iraq' - The Times 'The most honest rendering we've seen of embedded life, hands down, comes from Chris Ayres' - Washington Post 'The better things in the media war [include the] continuing brilliance of brave correspondents such as Chris Ayres' - Peter Preston, Observer 'Ayres [writes with] engaging honesty' - John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor and bestselling author - 'What a snivelling piece of s t' - Operation Freedom"

Chris 'risk averse' Ayres saw journalism as his ticket to schmoozing with celebrities and penning pompous opinion pieces. Instead he landed a plane ticket to Iraq. Chris Ayres is a self-confessed coward, born of a proud line of shirkers and well-versed in taking the cushy option. After a bad start in New York during 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, life seemed to be improving when, as a young reporter, he was promptly promoted to Los Angeles correspondent. The thrill of foreign reporting couched in the comforts of the Golden State. What could go wrong? But everything goes wrong. One day his boss calls to offer him an assignment as a war reporter, 'embedded' with US Marines on the front line of the Iraq War. Too cowardly to say no, Chris soon finds himself camped in the desert, blinded by sandstorms, caught in the crossfire, surrounded by military machismo on all sides. He decides he wants out - proud to be the first embedded reporter to bottle it. But this, his greatest act of cowardice, will almost kill him...War Reporting for Cowards is an extraordinary true story and the debut of a brilliant new voice - wry, intelligent, honest and deeply human. Hilarious, like a latter-day Scoop, it offers a seditious insight into the political events that have defined the century.