A new journalism textbook entitled Specialist Journalism looks at how to be a correspondent and a specialist reporter. It brings together chapters from reporters and correspondents across the spectrum and covers specialisms such as sport, business, politics, crime, environment, fashion, food, music, health, travel and war/defence reporting.

My chapter focuses on being a war/defence correspondent and looks at the challenges of reporting from the frontline drawing on my experiences in the Iraq War of 2003 and assignments in Kabul and the Helmand province of Afghanistan in recent years. It also discusses the issue of embedded war correspondents.

Published by Routledge (£21.99 paperback), the 220-page book is edited by Barry Turner and Richard Orange and combines practical ‘how to’ skills with reflection on the place of each specialism in the industry.

The guide features the skills needed to cover specialist areas, including writing match reports for sport, reviewing the arts, and dealing with complex information for science, and also discusses how specialist journalists have contributed to the mainstream news agenda, as well as analysing how different issues have been covered in each specialism.