Isabel Hilton
Isabel Hilton, OBE | |
---|---|
Born | Aberdeen, Scotland | 25 November 1947
Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
Isabel Nancy Hilton OBE (born 25 November 1947) is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster, based in London.
Early life
Hilton attended school in Alford, Aberdeenshire, Bradford Girls' Grammar School (Yorkshire) and Walnut Hills High School (Cincinnati, Ohio). She graduated from
Career
Over a long career in national and international print, online and broadcast media, Isabel Hilton has covered global politics, conflict, development, human rights, climate change and environmental degradation. In recent years her work has focussed on the impacts of a rising China with particular emphasis on climate change and China's global environmental footprint.
In addition to her writing career, she has made several radio and television documentaries and presented both BBC's Radio 4 current affairs programme The World Tonight and Radio 3's arts and cultural strand, Night Waves. Hilton joined Scottish Television as a presenter in 1976, moving later that year to the Daily Express as feature writer after being blacklisted by MI5 from a job at the BBC. She left the Daily Express five months later to join the Sunday Times where she subsequently held posts as feature writer, news reporter, Insight reporter and Latin America editor.
She covered the Falklands War from Buenos Aires in 1982 and continued to cover Latin America until the Sunday Times became embroiled in the dispute over its move to Wapping. She left the Sunday Times to join the founding team at The Independent as Latin America Editor. In 1989 she became Europe Editor, covering the fall of communism in Europe, then Chief Feature Writer.
In 1994 she left
In January 2023 Hilton became a contributing editor at Prospect Magazine. Hilton's written work has also appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New Statesman, The Economist, Granta, the Mail on Sunday, the Observer, the Financial Times, El Pais, Le Monde, La Stampa, Lettres Internationale, International Affairs, The World Today, The New European, Index on Censorship, Vogue (British and American), The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement, Foreign Policy The Literary Review, the London Review of Books, China File, Foreign Policy and many others.
Her television and radio documentaries include:
• Petra And the General, (BBC 1994)
• Kingdom Of the Lost Boy (BBC 1996)
• City On the Edge (BBC 1998)
• Condemned To Live (BBC 1999)
• Correspondent: the arrest of General Pinochet
• The Caravan of Death (BBC 2001)
She also reported several shorter films for BBC 2's Correspondent series.
Hilton's radio documentaries include The Bitter Pill, The Gesar Epic, Flowers in the Backyard, The Chinese Media, The Return of Faith, The End of Empire, The Uses of History in China, The Shadow of the Emperor.
In 2007, Hilton delivered the Ben Pimlott Memorial Lecture at Somerset House, London; in 2019, she delivered the annual James Cameron memorial lecture at City, University of London[2] on the subject: Journalism with Chinese characteristics: reflections on media in the new era. In 2022 she delivered the Sue Lloyd-Roberts Memorial Lecture.
Personal life
Hilton is married to
She is a regular discussion host at festivals and events, including How the Light Gets In and Web Summit (Lisbon,) and as a commentator on Monocle Radio, BBC and other outlets, as a featured speaker in London Climate Week (2021), the FT Festival, the Edinburgh Book Festival and many others. Past positions include: • contributing editor. Granta • Fellow, the Asia Society, New York • Board member Accountability 21, • member of the advisory board of the Oxford Research Group • member of the GE stakeholder panel, • founding trustee of Free Word • advisory board member and fellow of the British American Project. • advisory board member OSF Global Fellowship Program. • International co-chair, special project, Promoting social media and Public Participation in China's Green Development, China Council on International Cooperation on Environment and Development (2013)
She has also served as a member of the editorial board of International Affairs, the advisory board of the Latin America Bureau, the advisory board of the European Movement, the advisory board of the Association of Speakers of Chinese as a Second Language, and the editorial advisory board of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,
Board positions
Hilton chairs the board of the Centre for Investigative Journalism. She co-chairs the board of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and is a non-executive director of E3G, the climate think tank.
Publications
- The Search for the Panchen Lama, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0393049698.
• The Falklands War 1982 ISBN 9780722182826 (co-author)
The Fourth Reich: Klaus Barbie and the Neo-fascist Connection 1984 co-author, ISBN 0340344431
The Best of Granta Travel , (Penguin Books / Granta 1982 ) contributing author, ISBN 0140140417
The Best American Travel Writing , contributing author
Betrayed , contributing author,
The Rise of China (Smith Institute and Westminster University) contributing author,
The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup, (Harper Perennial 2006) (contributing author) ISBN 978-0061132261
Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar , (University of California Press 2011) contributing author ISBN 978-0520268678
Fifty Shades of Feminism, (Virago,2013) (contributing author) ISBN 9781844089451
China and the Environment: The Green Revolution, (Zed Books, 2013) (contributing author)
Mare Plasticum - The Plastic Sea: Combatting Plastic Pollution Through Science and Art (Springer Press 2020) (contributing author) ISBN 3030389448
China's 19th Party Congress (World Scientific Press 2019) (contributing author) ISBN 1786345919
References
- ^ See Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting, London: Hoagarth Press, 1988, p.107-8. The relevant extract (Chapter 5) is online here. See also David Leigh and Paul Lashmar "The Blacklist in Room 105", The Observer, 18 August 1985, p.9
- ^ "James Cameron Memorial Lecture". City, University of London. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
- ^ "No. 59090". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 June 2009. p. 25.
Sources
- Rider, Nick; Blain, Harry; Whyte, Lara; Brinham, Natalie; Akehurst, Nathan (17 July 2007). "openDemocracy: a farewell salute". openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 2 October 2017.
External links
- Isabel Hilton on Twitter
- Biography as editor Archived 29 March 2007 at the Chinadialogue
- Biography as a member of the Lettre Ulysses Award jury
- "Global Security Challenges Existential Threats & Geopolitics" on YouTube
- Profile in Global Times http://en.people.cn/90782/8099070.html
- Profile in Quartz https://qz.com/2005996/isabel-hilton-the-journalist-engaging-china-on-climate-change
- Sue Lloyd Roberts Memorial Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZal3SjcmE0&ab_channel=StHilda%27sCollegeAlumnaeEvents