Alex Crawford

Crawford first worked in journalism at the Wokingham Times, completing a National Council for the Training of Journalists newspaper course in Newcastle while working there. She subsequently worked for the BBC and for TV-am before joining Sky News when it was launched in 1989. [5][6][7] She began working as a foreign correspondent for Sky News in 2005. [8] Crawford has reported on the Gulf, the Middle East and more recently has covered the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya. [2] She has been named Journalist of the Year on five occasions by the Royal Television Society and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to broadcast journalism. [2][3][4] Her work has been recognized by the Foreign Press Association in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. She has also been cited by the Bayeux War Correspondents Awards for her reports from hostile environments for every year since 2007. [2] Crawford covered the 2011 Libyan civil war. She was widely praised for her live on-scene reporting of the Battle of Tripoli. She was the first TV journalist to enter Libya with the rebels, becoming a face of the conflict. [8] She travelled with a rebel convoy into the heart of Tripoli, shooting direct live footage of the rebel advances, which reached Green Square with little resistance from pro-Gaddafi forces. She wore a helmet and bulletproof vest, stating that she did not feel in any danger, but wore them as a precaution against celebratory gunfire.She also covered the raid of Bab al-Azizia live from outside the compound, and was one of the first journalists to go inside once the raid was over.