Jeremy Bowen, Welsh international editor of BBC News, was born in Cardiff on 6 February in 1960.
Who Is Jeremy Bowen?
Jeremy originally joined the BBC as a war correspondent all the way back in 1984. Son of another BBC journalist and editor, Gareth Bowen – who covered the Aberfan Disaster for the BBC back in 1966 – Jeremy has been a staple of BBC journalism for decades.
Throughout his lengthy and storied tenure with the BBC, he has reported from more than 70 countries, including El Salvador, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon and more. Speaking of Lebanon, Bowen has suffered with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) since an incident in 2000 when his colleague and friend, Abed Takkoush, was killed by IDF fire while in the same car as Jeremy. Following this horrific event, he went to work in the studio as presenter for a while. He returned to fieldwork covering frontlines around 2003.
However, despite some of the horrific scenes he has undoubtedly witnessed during his time abroad, he has admitted that more so than war, it is bowel cancer that has most changed him. He was diagnosed with the disease in 2019 and has previously spoken of how it altered his “glass half-full” side and made him more cynical – noting that it is only his survival of it which has brought back his optimism.
Since 2022, Jeremy has served in the role of International Editor.
DIGITAL Welsh Histories Magazine – February 2026
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