Beyond the Front Line

From risking imprisonment in order to secretly interview Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to battling the Solomon Islands’ Weather Coast to track down the notorious warlord Harold Keke, New Zealand journalist Mike McRoberts has made a habit of telling difficult and challenging stories.

In a reporting career spanning 25 years, he is best known for his work in some of the world’s most dangerous places: Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza. Mike has also covered some of the world’s worst natural disasters – in the Philippines, China and Haiti, and the devastating earthquakes in his hometown of Christchurch.
In the story behind the stories, Mike gives the reader a backstage pass to some of the biggest news events of the past decade, and candidly reveals the sometimes frightening, often fraught ways those stories have made it to air.

From the emotion of helping save a five-year-old girl injured during the earthquake in Haiti, or the shrewdness of hiding from the Israeli Defense Force in the Gaza strip, Mike’s conver­sationally written stories are compelling.