Reporter is an account of John McBeth's 40-year journey through Asia, more than half of that time as a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the venerable magazine long regarded as the region's English language Bible on political and economic affairs.
While necessarily a memoir, the book is more a reflection of the lives of a small group of foreign journalists who came to Asia on a wing and a prayer - and in McBeth's case by ship - and stayed on as fascinated witnesses to a region going through turbulent times and historic change.
Part-history, part-analysis, part story-telling and, in a smaller way, part commentary on the salad days of print journalism and its steady decline under the onslaught of television and the Internet, Reporter introduces us to a diverse cast of journalists, diplomats, officials, politicians and generals McBeth meets and befriends along the way.
The book deals with the five coups and attempted coups McBeth covered during his 16 years in Thailand; the Khmer Rouge reign of terror; the Indochinese refugee invasion; and the dramatic democratic transitions in South Korea and Indonesia, which helped change the face of once authoritarian Asia.
