It’s expensive, complex and dangerous. But it’s one of the most important things we do

Newspaper editors are usually light sleepers.

If I wake during the night, it takes all my willpower to resist a quick check of the news headlines. Usually, I admit defeat. My hand darts out from under the covers and, with a few well-practised thumb presses, conjures the homepages of publications on the other side of the world.

In recent weeks, there has been no such resistance. Overcome by the desire to keep abreast of developments in the Middle East, I found myself reading voraciously at times of the day usually reserved for bakers and burglars.

The significance of the Iran-Israel war was not lost on our subscribers, or the newsroom.Credit: AP

The significance of the Israel-Iran war and the world’s response was not lost on The Age’s subscribers or the newsroom, which sprang into action to bring you live blogs and news on significant developments in this rapidly evolving story.

We also helped subscribers understand and interpret events with expert analysis from our partner newsrooms around the world and Melbourne-based experts such as Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who gave Age readers the benefit of her considerable expertise on Iran and shared insights based on her first-hand experience as a prisoner of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Former correspondent and now environment editor Nick O’Malley was invaluable too, unpacking the events that led to the outbreak of war between the two nations.

On the other side of the world, when most of us were sleeping (and some of us were reading), our overnight teams and foreign correspondents hustled to make sure you woke to the most up-to-date and insightful accounts of what was going on in the world and what it meant. Our North America correspondent, Michael Koziol, in particular, provided reams of essential reading on Donald Trump and the United States’ involvement in the conflict, culminating in a presidential boilover on Wednesday.

Foreign affairs correspondent Matthew Knott and photographer Kate Geraghty are on the ground in Israel, where on Wednesday they reported from Beersheba. Stay tuned for some powerful reporting from them tomorrow morning when they examine the domestic political situation in that country. Matt and Kate have also reported from the West Bank and Lebanon in recent months. Access to Iran and Gaza remains difficult for Australian journalists.

We know that in times of global uncertainty, people come to The Age for a reasoned account of events and for the help of trusted journalists and commentators to understand it all. Our data shows world news remains one of the most important topics for our subscribers. Victorians, it is clear to me, care deeply about what happens around the world.

I saw that repeatedly during my time as The Age’s world editor in 2019 and 2020, when readers came to us for information on the Hong Kong riots and the struggle between democracy and Chinese Communist Party rule on the islands. They came to us for our coverage of the war in Syria, they came to us to find out what would happen when Britain split from the EU, and they came to us when a mysterious virus out of Wuhan rampaged across Italy.

Photographer Kate Geraghty has been capturing the destruction wreaked by war on the ground in Beersheba, Israel.Credit: Kate Geraghty

This is why The Age and its sister publications invest so much in a first-class world news team, regular foreign excursions and the assignment of four of our top journalists to permanent overseas postings.

On that note, I must thank Rob Harris for a stellar three years as our European correspondent. Few will ever write a piece with the poignancy and insight he seems to be able to summon at will. It has been a privilege to be able to bring you his inimitable reporting. Yesterday’s story, which he wrote for you from a bomb shelter in Ukraine, is a great example of his powerful storytelling ability. We look forward to him returning home and resuming his work on everything from federal politics to the Melbourne Cup.

Rob Harris filed an insightful piece on Kyiv this week from a bomb shelter under the city.

And we welcome his replacement, David Crowe, to the posting. I don’t need to convince any of you of Crowe’s journalistic calibre. One of the country’s finest reporters, you will be as well served by his work from Europe as you were during his time as our chief political correspondent in Canberra.

In other parts of the world, Lisa Visentin in North Asia and Zach Hope in South-East Asia continue to impress. Hope’s reporting on Myanmar in recent months has been excellent, and I highly recommend reading Visentin’s colourful story from the Chinese border town of Manzhouli, which she likens to a Russian outpost.

Our foreign coverage is expensive, complicated and sometimes dangerous. Those facts are inescapable. Without your support and your subscription, it would be extremely difficult for us to maintain such comprehensive overseas coverage.

So, from one sleep-deprived world news addict to another, thank you for enabling this important work.

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