![Steele, Jon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Steele%2C_Jon.IMG_9353.JPG)
Jon Steele is an American expat author living in Europe.
Biography
Jon Steele was born in
Spokane, Washington
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...
, in 1950. His father, a flight engineer in the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
, was frequently transferred to military bases around the western United States and Steele lived in five states by the time he was ten years old. In Montana, he graduated from
Great Falls Central Catholic High School in 1968. He attended College of Great Falls for one year before dropping out. He moved to New York and worked as a janitor, waiter, liquor store clerk and postman. While in New York, Steele became an avid listener of
WNEW-FM
WNEW-FM (102.7 FM, ''NEW 102.7'') is a hot adult contemporary formatted radio station, licensed to New York, New York and owned by Audacy, Inc. The station's studios are located at the Audacy facility in the Hudson Square neighborhood of Ma ...
's Alison Steele (no relation), Scott Muni and Jonathan Schwartz. Inspired by the
Album Oriented Rock
Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM radio format created in the United States in the 1970s that focuses on the full repertoire of rock albums and is currently associated with classic rock.
Album-orient ...
format at its creative peak, Steele quit the Post Office in 1972 after obtaining his
FCC 3rd Class Radio Operator's License.
He changed his name to Jon Steele in 1974 when he became an on-air presenter for KADE-AM and
KBCO-FM (both in Boulder, Colorado). Steele hosted the 6-10 evening slot on KBCO and gained a large audience along the
Denver, Colorado
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
front range. Steele was known to push the bounds of the approved playlist and was fired for breaking with the format in 1980.
Journalism career
He worked as a freelance radio producer and announcer for KTCL, Fort Collins and KGNU, Boulder before moving to Washington DC in 1982 to work for
National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
. Soon after arriving in Washington, DC, NPR faced bankruptcy (1983) and Steele's proposed job was eliminated before he started. He began working in television as a soundman in the Washington Bureau of
Independent Television News
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...
of London. In 1986, Steele began working as a cameraman for the network and traveled extensively through the American continents and Caribbean covering news and features. During this time Steele was credentialed to the White House and traveled internationally with both Presidents Reagan and Bush as part of the
White House Press Corps
The White House press corps is the group of journalists, correspondents, and members of the media usually assigned to the White House in Washington, D.C., to cover the president of the United States, White House events, and news briefings. Its o ...
. He also covered three presidential campaigns across the United States.
In 1990, Steele was transferred to ITN's
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
Bureau as cameraman/editor, where he worked until 1994. While based in Moscow, Steele became internationally recognized for a body of work covering the collapse of social and governmental institutions throughout the former
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. His footage of the fall of
Sukhumi
Sukhumi (russian: Суху́м(и), ) or Sokhumi ( ka, სოხუმი, ), also known by its Abkhaz name Aqwa ( ab, Аҟәа, ''Aqwa''), is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the capital and largest city of ...
during the civil war in the former Soviet
Republic of Georgia
A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...
(September, 1993) was the basis of a ten-minute report on ITV's
News at Ten called ''The Last Flight from Sukhumi. ''The report was honored as 'Story of the Year' by the
Royal Television Society and Steele received a citation for bravery from
Le Press Club de France. The citation also included ITN reporter
Julian Manyon and ITN Moscow producer Oleg Yuriev. Steele's footage of the Russian military crackdown during the
1993 Russian constitutional crisis won 'Cameraman of the Year' from the Royal Television Society, as well as a
BAFTA for factual television photography. He shared the award with fellow ITN cameraman Eugene Campbell. Steele was also awarded the Golden Nymph Award at the
Monte Carlo Television Festival
The Monte-Carlo Television Festival is held every year in June in the Principality of Monaco at the Grimaldi Forum, under the Honorary Presidency of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco.
The opening ceremony inaugurates each new edition, intro ...
in the same year.
In April and May 1994, Steele travelled twice to
Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
with ITV reporter
James Mates
James Mates (born 11 August 1961) is an English newsreader and journalist, currently employed by ITN, where he presents on ITV News and is Europe Editor.
Education and early career
Mates was educated at Marlborough College, an independent sch ...
to film the
Rwandan genocide
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu ...
of Tutsi civilians at the hands of the
Interahamwe
The Interahamwe ( or ) is a Hutu paramilitary organization active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND ...
, a Hutu
paramilitary organization. While in
Kigali
Kigali () is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali has been Rwa ...
, rebel forces of the Tutsi led
Rwandan Patriotic Front
The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF–Inkotanyi, french: Front patriotique rwandais, FPR) is the ruling political party in Rwanda. Led by President Paul Kagame, the party has governed the country since its armed wing defeated government forces, wi ...
laid siege to the capital city of Kigali, then held by the Hutu led government. Steele and Mates endured days of shelling and sniper fire while filming the desperate attempts of Canadian General
Roméo Dallaire
Roméo Antonius Dallaire (born June 25, 1946) is a Canadian humanitarian, author, retired senator and Canadian Forces lieutenant-general. Dallaire served as force commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda ...
to protect innocent Rwandan civilians as well as his own UN Peacekeeping force. Steele filmed the final battle and its aftermath near Kigali Airport, resulting in the mass exodus of Hutu military, paramilitary groups and civilians to
Zaire
Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...
(renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997).
In July 1994, while covering the
Great Lakes refugee crisis
The Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Many ...
, Steele spent weeks in the Hutu camps surrounding the border town of
Goma, Zaire (DRC), filming amid horrendous conditions as many thousands of men, women and children died from
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
.
In August 1994, Steele worked with ITN reporter
Terry Lloyd
Terence Ellis "Terry" Lloyd (21 November 1952 – 22 March 2003) was an English television journalist who reported extensively from the Middle East. He was killed by the U.S. military while covering the 2003 invasion of Iraq for ITN. An inq ...
in
Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...
. There, Steele filmed the shooting death of a young girl near
Sniper Alley
"Sniper Alley" (Serbo-Croatian and Bosnian: ''Snajperska aleja'' / Снајперска алеја) was the informal name primarily for streets such as Ulica Zmaja od Bosne ( Dragon of Bosnia Street) and Meša Selimović Boulevard, the main boul ...
. Returning from the assignment, Steele collapsed at Heathrow airport from physical and emotional strain. He was diagnosed with
posttraumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
but declined checking himself into a London treatment facility and returned to Moscow. He accepted a transfer to ITN's
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
bureau later that year.
Based in Hong Kong, Steele documented the final years of British rule over the colony. He also travelled across China, Asia, Pakistan and India, filming breaking news stories and long-form features. In 1996, he made three trips into
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
filming the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
takeover of Kabul with ITN reporter
Mark Austin. Steele and Austin later left Kabul and circled around by way of the
Salang Tunnel
The Salang Tunnel ( prs, تونل سالنگ ''Tūnel-e Sālang'', ps, د سالنگ تونل ''Da Sālang Tūnel'') is a tunnel in Afghanistan, located at the Salang Pass in the Hindu Kush mountains, between the Parwan and Baghlan provinces, ...
to join the Afghan warlord
Ahmad Shah Massoud as he led
Northern Alliance
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( prs, جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان ''Jabha-yi Muttahid-i Islāmi-yi Millī barāyi Nijāt ...
forces in an assault against the Taliban in Kabul.
After the
transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong
Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the former colony. Hong Kong was established as a special admini ...
to Chinese rule in 1997, Steele was assigned to ITN's
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
Bureau where he worked across the Middle East and Arab-speaking Africa. That same year he made the first of many trips to
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, then under the control of
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
. In 1998 Steele covered the escalating conflict between Serbian military forces and the
Kosovo LIberation Army in the
Serb
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
controlled province of
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
, leading to the
War in Kosovo
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war ...
. In June 1999, he spent weeks near the Albanian border town of
Kukës
Kukës ( sq-definite, Kukësi) is a city in the Republic of Albania. The city is the capital of the surrounding municipality of Kukës and county of Kukës, one of 12 constituent counties of the republic. It spans and had a total population of 1 ...
covering the humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of Albanians living in Kosovo were forced marched by Serb forces across the border. In the same year Steele was selected as pool cameraman for the British Army led NATO advance to
Pristina
Pristina, ; sr, / (, ) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population of ethnic Albanians and ...
. It was thought the advance would take two days, but the point of the advance reached the outskirts of the capitol by sundown. The British Army held up on the hill above the city to regroup and prepare to enter the city at dawn. Steele went ahead into Pristina that night and drove to the
Grand Hotel A grand hotel is a large and luxurious hotel, especially one housed in a building with traditional architectural style. It began to flourish in the 1800s in Europe and North America.
Grand Hotel may refer to:
Hotels Africa
* Grande Hotel Beir ...
occupied by Serb officials, soldiers and members of the Belgrade-based press corps. He advised those present that the British Army was just outside the city and on the way. The hotel began to empty out and Steele booked several rooms, and the ballroom, for members of the ITN production team traveling with the British Army. He remained in Pristina for two more weeks filming British Forces as they secured the city and Kosovo. ITN's coverage of the Kosovo War received 1999's Golden Nymph Award from the Monte Carlo Television Festival. The
Second Intifada
The Second Intifada ( ar, الانتفاضة الثانية, ; he, האינתיפאדה השנייה, ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada ( ar, انتفاضة الأقصى, label=none, '), was a major Palestinian uprising against Israel. ...
broke out in Jerusalem in September 2000, and Steele spent the next two years traveling across Israeli/Palestinian lines of control to film both sides of the conflict.
At the end of 2002, and with the
Second Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
looming, Steele was based in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
for five months in the lead up to the war. However, on March 19, 2003, the day before the war began, he resigned from ITN citing professional and personal reasons. He drove out of Baghdad the same night, reaching the Jordanian border as Coalition jets bombed nearby Iraqi positions. Two days later, Steele received a message from ITN asking him to reconsider his resignation and return to Iraq. Steele declined and went into seclusion in the
Tuchan
Tuchan (; oc, Tuissan) is a commune in the Aude department in southern France.
Population
See also
* Fitou AOC
Fitou ( oc, Fiton) is a large French wine appellation in Languedoc-Roussillon, France. The dominant vine variety is Carigna ...
valley of southern France for ten months. From 2004 - 2006, he lived between
Lausanne, Switzerland
Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and fac ...
and
Amman, Jordan
Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 as of 2021, Amman is ...
, writing stories based on his Iraq experiences in a work titled ''Saddamistan''. The book remains unpublished.
''Baker Boys: Inside the Surge''
In 2007, Steele tuned into American news broadcasts for the first time since 2003. He was shocked at the numbers of suicides among American soldiers serving in, or returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, after a four-month application process, Steele received permission from the United States Army Office of the Chief of Public Affairs in Los Angeles (OPCA-West) to travel alone to Combat Outpost Cahill near
Salman Pak
fa,
, settlement_type = city
, image_skyline = File:001125-TaqKasra-Iraq-IMG 7914-2.jpg
, caption = Salman Pak's famous Taq Kasra, the largest single-span vault of unreinforced brickwork in the world ...
in the Southern Bowl region of Iraq. There, unsupported by any broadcast organization, he joined
Baker Company of
15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division as they pushed into an
Al Qaeda stronghold southeast of Salman Pak to establish Combat Outpost Carver. Steele was given unrestricted and uncensored access to Baker Company over three months, and he recorded more than one hundred hours of tape in a '
fly-on-the-wall
Fly on the wall is a style of documentary-making used in film and television production. The name derived from the idea that events are seen candidly, as a fly on a wall might see them. In the purest form of fly-on-the-wall documentary-making, ...
' documentary style, filming all aspects of the soldiers' lives from patrols to the chow line. In his last weeks at COP Carver, he engaged members of Baker Company in one-on-one, confessional-style interviews wherein the soldiers expressed their emotions and feelings about the war.
Steele's work was edited into a four-part documentary series, ''
Baker Boys: Inside the Surge''. The program was first aired by
HDNet in 2010, and received wide critical praise as well as eight awards. The series has since been screened on
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
and several broadcast outlets including New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Europe. It has also been made available on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
.
Jon Steele's career as a news cameraman was profiled in two documentaries:
Jon Blair
Jon Blair, CBE, is a South African-born writer, film producer and director of documentary films, drama and comedy.
Biography
Jon Blair was born in South Africa. He was drafted into the South African army in 1966 but chose instead to flee to Engla ...
's ''Reporters at War'' (2004); and
Martyn Burke
Martyn Burke (born 1952) is a Canadian director, novelist and screenwriter from Toronto, Ontario.
Biography
Born in Hamilton, Ontario, to Freda and Les Burke who immigrated from England to Canada during World War II as part of the British Civ ...
's ''Under Fire: Journalists in Combat'' (2012).
Books
Jon Steele's Moscow-based years (1990–1994) were the source material for ''War Junkie: One Man's Addiction to the Worst Places on Earth'' (Transworld, 2002), an autobiographical work documenting one year in the life of a front-line cameraman. In a review for the
London Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
newspaper, journalist
Sam Kiley
Sam Kiley (born 1964, Kenya) is a Senior International Correspondent at CNN. Prior to CNN, he was the Foreign Affairs Editor of Sky News. He is a journalist with over twenty years' experience, based at different times of his career in London, Los ...
called ''War Junkie'' "The most authentic literary recreation of the hollow terror, confusion and soul-crushing cacophony of battle I have read in decades."
In 2011, Steele's first novel, ''The Watchers'' was published in the United Kingdom by Transworld, and later in the United States by Blue Rider Press. It was the first part of a mystical noir thriller titled, "The Angelus Trilogy." Part two of the trilogy, ''Angel City'' was published worldwide in 2012. The final book of the trilogy, ''The Way of Sorrows,'' was released in 2015. Blue Rider Press (Penguin/Random House) released the ''Angelus Trilogy'' as a box set in July 2016.
Published works
*War Junkie, (2002) Transworld Publishers, London,
The Watchers(2011, 2012) Transworld Publishers, London, ; Penguin Group, New York,
Angel City(2013) Penguin Group, New York ; Transworld Publishers, London,
The Way of Sorrows(2015) Penguin Group, New York,
References
External links
* Reporters at War http://truevisiontv.com/films/details/86/reporters-at-war
* Under Fire: Journalists in Comba
http://underfirejournalistsincombat.webs.com* Baker Boys: Inside the Surge http://dartcenter.org/content/baker-boys-inside-surge
* Baker Boys: Inside the Surge (Special Frontline Club edit) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOM0F8fzb4
* How the Angelus Trilogy Got Started http://upcoming4.me/news/book-news/story-behind-angel-city-by-jon-steele#.Uc1ScH7lmNc.twitter
* Radio, TV, War and Angels: an Audiobiography of Jon Steele http://djs.ozcatradio.com/?p=438
* https://www.facebook.com/jonsteeleauthor
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steele, Jon
American reporters and correspondents
Writers from Spokane, Washington
1950 births
Living people