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Lyse Doucet on Reporting from the Frontlines (Part Two)

Intelligence Squared

Thu Oct 23 2025

Summary

Intelligence Squared: Lyse Doucet on Reporting from the Frontlines (Part Two)

Date: October 23, 2025
Host: Intelligence Squared
Guests: Lyse Doucet (Chief International Correspondent, BBC), Lindsay Hilsum (Channel 4 International Editor)
Location: Live at the Kiln Theatre, London

Episode Overview

This episode features Part Two of a live conversation between two of the world’s most experienced conflict reporters: Lyse Doucet and Lindsay Hilsum. They reflect on decades of telling human-centered stories from war zones, focusing on Lyse’s new book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul. The discussion traverses vivid storytelling, the realities of reporting from conflict, the nuances of Afghan culture (especially for women), the ongoing crises in Afghanistan, and Doucet’s recent frontline experience in Israel and Gaza during a momentous ceasefire. Audience Q&A explores the challenges, ethics, and risks of war reporting.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Vivid Human Stories Amid Conflict

Capturing Normalcy and Humanity in Crisis:
Lyse’s writing style is highlighted through a poignant wedding scene in her book, symbolizing shattered dreams at the arrival of the Taliban.

“Her pure white wedding dress, gleaming with dreams, still hung on its hangar in her bridal changing room.”
– Lindsay Hilsum reading Lyse Doucet’s description, (02:55)
Afghan Weddings as Windows to Identity:
Lyse explains the tradition of brides wearing three dresses, culminating in the white dress, and the emotional impact of a bride never getting to wear it due to the Taliban’s arrival.

“She never wore her white dress. Because if you work at a hotel, they said, oh, that never happened before. We didn’t serve the lunch. Nobody ate the lunch. And they told me this story because their world was the world of weddings.”
– Lyse Doucet, (04:27)

2. Food, Memory, and Afghan Life

The Role of Food in Culture and Storytelling:
Lyse discusses her affectionate descriptions of Afghan food and how cuisine is entwined with memory and history.

“Food actually has one of the most direct paths to memory... our memories often go through food. And also, food is an expression of culture.”
– Lyse Doucet, (05:47)
Abida, the First Female Chef at Kabul’s Hotel:
Through the character Abida Nazeri, a widow and the first female chef, Lyse shows the resilience of Afghan women.

“She enters the story... after 2001, when the Taliban were toppled... Abda Nazeri, widow, illiterate mother of eight children, is the first woman to sign up for a job at a government hotel. And suddenly she feels she has her sense of self back.”
– Lyse Doucet, (11:47)

3. Women’s Evolving Roles and Current Hardships in Afghanistan

Memories and Realities of Afghan Women:
Lyse reflects on both the nostalgia for earlier eras of Afghan progress and the devastation under current Taliban policies.

“It was a time when women were starting to advance in Afghanistan… And so for me, in telling the story of the hotel, which is also the story of Afghanistan, it was really important I have a female character, an Afghan woman, to be able to tell that.”
– Lyse Doucet, (07:48)
Current Plight and Desperation:
Lyse describes the desperation of Afghan women today and the responsibilities and limits of international journalists in offering help.

“Not a day goes by… a young girl, Lisa, I want to do my TOEFL test… but they all want to get out, especially if they’re a young girl… It’s really, really, really desperate. Really desperate.”
– Lyse Doucet, (31:17)

4. From Kabul to Gaza: Frontline Reporting in Real Time

Reporting on the Gaza Ceasefire:
Lyse brings a breaking perspective from Tel Aviv, describing the emotional and diplomatic intensity of the ceasefire agreement and hostage-prisoner exchanges.

“Yesterday was... the grievous Gaza war finally came to an end... the deadliest day in the history of Israel… left Gaza in utter ruin... And it was such an extraordinary, overwhelming relief, unbridled joy. And we don't see that often, most of all in the Middle East.”
– Lyse Doucet, (15:05–16:55)

5. Audience Q&A: The Realities and Ethics of War Reporting

Scariest Moments in Conflict: Lyse recounts her first experience under aerial bombardment in Afghanistan, reflecting on the tension between perceived and real danger.

“I always think it’s the first time you come under fire... it was a time, 1992... warplanes are going overhead... they dropped their bombs. And that was the first time. And I remember being really—because I’d never felt it before.”
– Lyse Doucet, (25:56–28:17)
Disagreements with Editors: Despite the challenges, both Lyse and Lindsay praise their editorial relationships.

“I cannot remember a single time where they took issue with what I said… they also place great trust in their correspondents.”
– Lyse Doucet, (29:13)
On Empathy, Objectivity, and Human Stories: The journalists emphasize the need for empathy without emotional sensationalism.

“Emotion doesn’t really have a place in reporting… but empathy, I think empathy is really, really important... all the stories… if you drill down, what are the stories about? They’re about mothers and fathers and children and families and streets and neighborhoods and cities. It is a human story.”
– Lyse Doucet, (37:03–37:57)
Broader Social and Political Context: Lyse also points out how stories of crises like Afghanistan are increasingly marginalized in the global news cycle due to new major conflicts such as Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza.

“The great tragedy is that it hardly got any news attention because Ukraine, you know… Gaza, Sudan—Sudan’s not taking any attention.”
– Lyse Doucet, (33:02)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the Power of Storytelling:

“Afghans are poets as well. All of the stories are true. All of the dialogue is true.”
– Lyse Doucet, (10:14)
On Frontline Witnessing:

“This is the great, great privilege of journalism where you’re not marching on the sidelines of history. We find ourselves smack in the middle and you can just feel it, that excitement of being there.”
– Lyse Doucet, (17:52)
On Women’s Lost Rights:

“The big question, of course, is what if there hadn’t been… what if Afghanistan was still a kingdom today? But it is a very, still, very traditional country. Even when the international engagement was there… the countryside was really where the military operations went on, not where things were being really developed.”
– Lyse Doucet, (35:04)
On the Nature of Modern Wars:

“Women and children are not close to the front line. They are the frontline.”
– Lyse Doucet, (37:24)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:55–04:27| Vivid wedding scene from Kabul and symbolism of lost futures | | 05:39–07:11| Afghan food as memory and cultural expression; role of the chef | | 07:11–11:45| Finding Abida, women's roles, post-coup traumas | | 14:29–16:55| Reporting from Israel on Gaza’s ceasefire, emotional impact | | 22:19–28:17| Audience Q&A—Danger, fear, and responsibility in war reporting | | 29:13–30:54| Relationship with editors and editorial trust | | 31:01–33:02| Friends and sources left behind in Afghanistan | | 34:01–35:57| Afghan women: voting rights then and now, loss and resistance | | 36:31–37:57| Empathy vs. sensationalism; women as the frontline |

Conclusions & Takeaways

Lyse Doucet and Lindsay Hilsum offer a poignant, deeply human exploration of what it means to chronicle war—not just the violence, but the ordinary lives it disrupts. Their commitment to empathy, accuracy, and centering lived experience—especially of women—shines throughout, as does their insistence that journalism is above all a human endeavor. The conversation closes with reminders of both the responsibility and limits of international reporters and the essential, ongoing importance of telling—and listening to—the human stories in conflicts often neglected by the global spotlight.

For further debate and to support independent journalism, visit Intelligence Squared.

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Transcript

A (0:00)

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B (1:45)

This episode is brought to you by Rumchata, a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum. It's it's best enjoyed over ice or in your coffee, delivering vacation vibes any way or anywhere you drink it. Find out more@rumchata.com drink responsibly Caribbean rum with real dairy cream, natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75% by volume 27.5 proof Copyright 2025 Agave Loco Brands, Pojoaaukee, Wisconsin. All rights reserved. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Today we're rejoining for Part two of our recent live event with Chief International Correspondent Lee Doucet. On reporting from the front lines, Doucet was joined in conversation by fellow broadcaster and international editor for Channel 4, Lindsay Hilson. The pair reflected on 40 years of telling human centered stories of conflict and explored Doucet's new book, the Finest Hotel in Kabul. If you missed the first part of this discussion, we recommend skipping skipping back an episode to get up to speed. Now let's rejoin the conversation live at the Kiln Theatre in London.

C (2:55)

There's another sentence a bit later on, so Lise describes how basically the Guests all flee because they know that the Taliban is coming. And this is one of the sort of things about your writing which I love. You write the last outfit of her special day, her pure white wedding dress, gleaming with dreams, still hung on its hangar in her bridal changing room. It just makes you. Because I think one of the things I love about that sort of scene is very vivid, the way you write it. But again, it's about what image do we have of Afghans in Afghanistan? And we're very familiar, obviously now with the Taliban, and we're very familiar with women in their burqas and so on. And yet you recreate this Afghanistan, which is so very different. It's still traditional. As you say, we're all Muslims, but there is this bride, like a bride anywhere in the world on her special day, and history has caught up with her.

B (7:11)

Yeah, I'll tell you just a little story as a parenthesis. It was really important for me, obviously, in telling the story. I had to tell the story of the women. It would have been a huge gap if I didn't, because it's very much part of the story of Afghanistan. But also post 2021, and some of you may seen this on social media, there's been this wash of nostalgia and partly as a rebuke to the Taliban, so many Afghans started posting pictures, videos of what Kabul was like in the 70s when, as I said, you know, they had this first luxury hotel. Photographs of women, educated women in Western wear, some of them in miniskirts, women clutching books at the university. And that was really. It was in a time when women were starting to advance in Afghanistan, starting to play roles in society. And so for me, in telling the story of the hotel, which is also the story of Afghanistan, it was really important. I have a female character, an Afghan woman, to be able to tell that, because I knew when Afghans read the book, they would want to see that. And I found, as one does doing research, someone gave me a name, a name and this was just at the end of COVID And I called this Afghan woman in the United States, in the southern United States. And she answered the phone. She goes, how did you get my number? And I said, well, friend of a friend. She goes, the Intercontinental Hotel. Oh, I loved that hotel. And she. We talked for four hours. She talked about how she had been the first female manager at the hotel. She talked about going to work with her ponytail and her miniskirt, and how, because she. She balanced. She. She understood the culture of the west because she was educated in the United States. She understood the culture of Afghanistan. She came from a family related to the k. Very traditional family, but she was part of that generation of women who were coming of age. The next telephone call, weeks later, three hours going through her wedding at the hotel and this. And then as we went on, we went from the days in the hotel was this shining beacon on the hill, this little jewel. And then we get to the first coup where she's taken in for questioning. Then we get to the second coup where she's thrown into prison, accused of working for the CIA because she. She was in an American hotel. Then many of her social class had to flee in hiding. And then she disappeared for a year. She didn't answer my calls. She didn't. Any WhatsApp messages went unanswered. And then finally I called her and I said, I have to get your permission to use your story, and your story is going to inspire Afghan women. It's so important. She said, I can't. I can't. I don't want to be in your book. And I said, why? And I just realized that when we started, all of the happy memories came back, and she suddenly could feel the person that she was when she was in that shining bubble. I described the hotel as a bubble in that time because it was only the elite. It was a very expensive hotel, and she really was in there. She was in her early 20s, and life was before her, and. But then. Then the history became full of shadows, and then it became very dark, and then she had to leave. And she wouldn't. She wouldn't. She wouldn't. So.

B (10:55)

So, Abida, what you picked up on that? The. The people who work in the hotel, they really keep their Bearing their sense of dignity, that even the ones who weren't trained by the proper intercontinental, they take pride in serving guests. The guest is always right in this hotel, whether they're a housekeeper or their waiter or the front desk manager or in Abeda's case, as a cook. And I can still see her when she came into the cafe in the hotel and she came towards me, and she was wearing a pink headscarf. It was her favorite, her favorite color. And she had a white chef's coat on. And she sat down to sit with me. And the sad stories came out that she was a widow, like many women in Afghanistan. She'd lost her husband in the war, and on top of it, her daughter had also lost her husband in war. And I felt this. Oh, this, like this sadness about generation after generation, misery on misery, that what happens to what one woman then happens to her daughter, and the pain carries through generation after generation. But then as I got to know Abeda even more, I just. I saw her strength. Here. She was a widow, illiterate. She couldn't read, she couldn't write. She. She. She had no education at all, but, wow, she could cook. And she begins. She enters the story of the hotel when she hears about a job opening after, in 2001, when the Taliban were toppled. She's addicted to the news. And even though the doctor says to her, stop watching the news. Your blood pressure is going up. And she's always got her radio against her ear, and she hears Hamid Karzai announcing that the Taliban are gone and women have their rights and women can return to work. And she bolts out the door, and she's telling me the story. All of the stories are true. All of the dialogue is true. Afghans are poets as well. She then bolts out the door, rushes down to the newly opened government office for jobs, and she, Abda Nazeri, widow, illiterate mother, single mother of eight children, is the first she can sign her signature. She's the first woman to sign up for a job at a government hotel. And suddenly she feel. Feels she has her sense of self back. Because whether it was the mujahideen or the Taliban, they pushed her back into the home. She became a seamstress, but she wanted to be abida, the chef again. So she comes to the hotel on the hill and she's tested. And of course, it's no longer the kitchen of kitchens. Doesn't have the right pots to make dumplings, doesn't have, you know, the stove is in a terrible state of repair. Doesn't have all the right ingredients, but she cooks. They say, what can you cook? And these are the foreign managers, they know nothing about Afghan food. So she cooks them. Mantu and ashak, which are these wonderful dumplings. And of course, they love them. And she's hired on the spot. And she feels this great sense of pride. Not only has she become the first female chef at the Intercontinental Cobble, Abda Nazeri has. Change the menu.

B (15:05)

Well, yesterday was for those I'm assuming everyone in the audience knows a bit about what happened yesterday in the region, both in Jerusalem, Gaza, well across Israel, and then in Sharm El Sheikh. And thank God the Intelligence Squared event wasn't yesterday. So yesterday was the grievous Gaza war finally came to an end after months and months of protracted negotiations, after a war which has been unprecedented in every way, the deadliest day in the history of Israel. The October 7 attacks, which killed 1,200 people, took hostage 250, triggered the deadliest, the longest war in the Middle east and has left Gaza in utter ruin. Generations of families wiped out, and there never. The war just didn't seem to end until President Donald Trump finally focused on ending the war. And he exerted the kind of pressure that only the U.S. president and commander in chief can exert on its most important strategic ally, Israel, and in this case, his close friend Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, but also through Arab meteors on Hamas. And yesterday was the day where he came to the region to to Jerusalem and Sharm el Sheikh for what we all described as a victory lap. And it was a day fraught, was freighted with history, an extraordinary diplomatic and political achievement. But it was most of all an intensely human moment. The re releases of the last 20 Israeli hostages still alive who'd survived their ordeal reunited with their families, the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners reunited with their families. And it was such an extraordinary, overwhelming relief unbridled joy. And we don't see that often and most of all in the Middle East. And of course, President Trump came and said this is about more than Gaza. This is peace in the Middle east in that superlative way he likes to talk. And I think everyone here knows. Sorry, Donald. It's great, it's absolutely brilliant that you finally pushed all sides to get them to cease fire, to get them to agree to the first phase of your 20 point peace plan. Peace for the sake of both Israelis and Palestinians, the sake of all of us. We all hope and pray that there's peace on the horizon, but it's not. It's going to be a long, long time in coming. And already today we're hearing about it breaking down. But there are moments in journalism, I think you'd agree, Lindsay, where you are, this is the great, great privilege of journalism where you're not marching on the sidelines of history. We find ourselves smack in the middle and you can just feel it, that excitement of being there. And in our case, the excitement of telling to the world and telling a story, which for all of the complications, for all of the speeches made by President Trump, which rambled on and on, which were more about him than was about the hostages, and that's a factual statement. This is not reflecting any political bias. It was such a day. I woke up this morning still thinking about those emotional reunions on both sides. If you've shopped online, chances are you've.

B (23:22)

Let me just. I'll tell you as a parenthesis. I'll tell you this, that when every once in a while, the BBC does what they call these focus groups where they ask people, what do you think about this person or that person? And they did them several. Quite a few years ago when I was doing a lot more presenting and also working as a correspondent. So they went and they asked, you know, what do you think about this person? What do you think about this? And then they came to me and they said, solis, you. We have your report on you from the focus group. And I said, oh, okay. They said, well, there was some good comments. I said, great. They said, but there was some criticism. And I said, oh, okay. So what was that? And they said, well, they said, you don't look scared. And I said, well, what does that mean? They said, well, you know, you're in these really dangerous places, but you don't look scared enough. So they found this really troubling. And I think Lindsay will know is that when you're doing television, you just provide a snapshot. And I remember realizing this when I was in Karachi in southern Pakistan, and it was a time when there was some civil strife and the army put the tanks on the street. So there was one street where there was a tank. And so the image on the BBC was the tank on the street. But of course, all the other streets didn't have tanks. So if I'm sitting, standing next to the tank, they're like, oh, that's so dangerous. So I explained to the guy at the BBC, I said, listen, if I'm in a place. So let's say here we are. And let me just emphasize. And, you know, I don't want to sound Pollyannish or whatever, but, you know, when we come from these places and dear friend John Lee Anderson is here, is that I'm always saying about living with gratitude. The fact that we can take for granted that we're in this. We're in this beautiful hall with this lovely kind of gathering, and we're not. We don't have a single thought that a missile could come crashing through the roof or that when we go out there that there might be a gunman who will cross our path. And so when, if we, when I'm reporting in a place where you hear a bomb, but it's way over there, the noise is loud, but it's not about to drop on my head. So I said, well, why should I look scared? But if, because there's no need to dramatize a dramatic situation. However, if we're somewhere where literally the gunmen are at the door and they're banging on it, then I will look scared. But I thought you won't be brought.

B (25:56)

But, but. So I feel it's our responsibility. I think you would, you would agree, Lindsay, that, I mean, not mentioning any names that some people do sometimes exaggerate. I mean, not the BBC or Channel 4, of course not. But that, but back to answer your question, I always think that it's the first time, the first time that you come under fire and you don't know what's going to happen to your body. And for me, it was a time, it was 1992, when there was a. I was living in Afghanistan, living in Pakistan then, but traveling to Afghanistan a lot. There had been a coup, and we were going into Afghanistan to find the coup leader. And I said to the, I said, we traveled with the mujahideen. And I said, listen, we can't go to where the mujahideen, this guy is because the Afghan government with those warplanes, Soviet warplanes are going to follow us. And so the mujahideen commander says, no, no, please, we're not going to, we're just going to go to the border. I said, okay, fine, I'll just go to the border. Border. And then we're going. And we're going. And I said, excuse me, I thought we're just going to the border. Oh, we just are going a little over the border. And I said, I told you I was going on this trip only if we weren't going deep into Afghanistan because I lived in Kabul. I know about those Soviet warplanes. I go, don't worry, Lise. And then of course, the warplanes are going overhead. And of course, they dropped their bombs. And that was the first time. And I remember being really. Because I'd never felt it before. And I remember I talked a lot. I asked my Rahimullah Yousafzai was with me, but famous Pakistani journalist, and he was trying to. And I said, what are we going to do? And so finally I said to the mujahideen escorts, I said, I told you I didn't want to go this far. This is way too dangerous. And I think we should turn back. And go back they go, oh, Lise. But it's too late. And besides the convoy that the trucks have broken down, so we actually have to get out and walk now. And it was the middle of the winter, and of course, it's the proverbial. And I said, well, how far is the place we're going? They said, it's just five minutes away. Five hours later, we're still trying to get to this place. But I'll finish the story by saying, then once the warplanes went away, we were walking through the mountains of Afghanistan. So this beautiful white snow, and it was a full moon. And I suddenly then realized. I thought, wow, I'm actually learning quite a lot having survived that the bombs didn't hit us. There was just that sensation that it could be us. That suddenly I realized how the gorillas, the mujahideen, how they operated in these mountainous conditions, how they found cover. And as a small personal note, my sister was studying at Cambridge University then. And then I suddenly remembered, oh, my God, Andrea's giving birth any day now. In was born that night that I was going through Afghanistan and trying to evade the war, the bombs.

B (37:37)

Ukraine, yes, we know you like to be in the trenches. They are, okay, but the front lines now go right through. They go through neighborhoods, they go through streets, they go through houses. And I often say that women and children are not close to the front line, they are the frontline. The number of civilians, for example, in the Gaza war that have been killed in this grievous war in huge numbers. And again, I've often said, and I think Lindsay and I, I often say to people that I love being in the field with Lindsay, but there's a disadvantage because we actually approach the stories in the same way. So we end up doing the same stories and because we're very collegial, like in Syria, she would, we'd go to Syria, she would come back and Say, Lise, I did this story and this is how I did it. I didn't do this story, didn't have time. But if you want to do it, this is how you should do it. And of course my editors would say, lise, Channel four is our competitor. And I would say, you know, kind of, kind of thing. So that also is about being human when it comes to empathy. You know, there was a time when people were talking about emotion in reporting. And there are some, particularly, I think American broadcasters, they love to make their correspondent the center of the action. So for example, during the Arab Spring, CNN was more interested that Anderson Cooper was caught up in the tear gas than they were in the people in the square. And we get it because they say that's way that the viewers can relate to the story more, because they want to know what's happening to Anderson Cooper. But I think you and I are both in the same way that emotion doesn't really have a place in reporting. You don't have to see us crying, you don't have to see us getting angry. You don't have to see us emotions running over. But empathy, I think empathy is really, really important in the sense of showing that at least you have an understanding of what is happening. Because all of the stories of our time, no matter how complex and consequential, if you drill down into these stories, what are the stories about? They're about mothers and fathers and children and families and streets and neighborhoods and cities. It is a human story. Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by me, Mia Sorrenti and it was edited by Mark Roberts. Foreign hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's Premium Wireless is 15amonth. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introverted dream. Give it a try@minmobile.com Switch upfront payment of 45 for 3 month plan. 15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. Cmnobile.com.