Mike Amor: Foreign correspondent on the story that made him reconcile his journalism with his humanity

With almost two decades of experience as a foreign correspondent, Mike Amor has covered some of the world’s most daunting events.

But it was the 7News Melbourne presenter’s personal involvement in the famous rescue of Haitian toddler Winnie Tilin from the island’s 2010 earthquake that forced him to confront the delicate balance of his humanity, and his role as a journalist.

“We were there as reporters, but we also had a responsibility as humans, and we did both,” he said.

Winnie, a 16-month-old Haitian girl, had been buried in the rubble for three days without food and water before she was finally pulled free by Australian news crews and handed to Mr Amor, who gave her water.

Mr Amor cites his involvement in the rescue during the coverage of the 2010 disaster as just one instance which led him to reflect on how his work had him oscillate between two worlds.

“I went from covering hundreds of thousands of people dead in Haiti and pulling a toddler out of the rubble, to going home to my own toddler bouncing on the trampoline,” Mr Amor said.

“You’re living in two different worlds, but you really didn’t have a chance to reconcile what you had just been through.”

The powerful video footage of the rescue flashed around the world, and Mr Amor said these images shamed the world into action after initial global responses to the disaster - in which at least 100,000 people are believed to have died - dwindled.

“We saw a great influx of professional rescuers. I hope more lives were saved as a result of that, because little Winnie wasn’t the only person that we heard of who was still trapped.”

Mr Amor and cameraman Huw Matheson won an Edward R Murrow Award for Excellence in Breaking News Coverage for their story on the rescue of Winnie.

It was one of many significant - and horrific - world events covered by Mr Amor in his 18 years as 7News’ US Bureau Chief.

He was on the ground in the aftermath of 9/11 and spent weeks reporting from a devastated Manhattan.

“I don’t mind admitting I was overwhelmed. I think we all were, and that includes police. Nobody had seen anything like this before,” he said.

“Your eyes are seeing something that your mind finds hard to comprehend.”

In those moments of terror and disbelief, Mr Amor said he had to constantly remind himself that he was on the scene to do a job.

In order to cope, he said he and his fellow foreign correspondents often had to “push it down” and keep moving as there was little time to deal with the severity of what they witnessed.

With periods as 7News’ sole foreign correspondent, Mr Amor was sent from time zone to time zone.

“I was the only correspondent in the US in 2000, and then quickly became the only correspondent that the network had right across the world. So outside of Australia, when something happened, I was it,” he said.

While he was moved after revisiting nearly two decades worth of television reports from this time, he conceded that the horrors he saw “did chip away at the soul”.

He also experienced the challenges of staying safe in conflict zones while covering extremely daunting events like the previous Gaza War in 2008 and the Libyan Civil War in 2011, where he was on the front line.

“Not only do you need to cover the story, you have to survive. You have to find somewhere to stay when often places are closed, you have to find somewhere to eat, to charge your equipment, your phone, you need money, fuel,” he said.

But it’s just part of the job for a “news cowboy” foreign correspondent, he said: 12-hour days, being always on the clock and staying on the line until the story is told.

“Sometimes we took risks with our own welfare, we never knew what kind of adventure we were going off to next, and that’s why we kind of felt like cowboys,” he said.

“We weren’t mavericks when it came to telling the truth, or in the search for the truth.”

It’s this decades-old nickname that found its way to the cover of Mr Amor’s new book, News Cowboys, which details his raw experience as a roaming reporter.

Sitting down to write the book, he had a special asset: whole archives of video footage documenting his reporting.

“I was lucky enough to go back, and I think I might have driven the librarian staff here at 7News nuts,” he said.

“I also spoke to my cameramen, who I work with closely. I was always with somebody else, this was a shared experience. I found it really cathartic to go back and talk to them.

“It’s great to get their perspective on what we went through, and the things that I’d forgotten, the things that they remember differently. So that was important to me, to make sure I hadn’t exaggerated it.”

The book is born out of a wealth of experience, and Mr Amor hopes readers will take away an understanding of the challenges faced by foreign correspondents, and the personal costs of the role.

Those 18 years are something he still finds difficult to believe.

“If you had told young Mike Amor, who started as a cadet, that this would be what was ahead of him, he wouldn’t have believed it.”

He said he is grateful to anyone who takes the time to read his story.

“If you like it, tell somebody, and if you don’t, lie.”

News Cowboys is available to purchase now online and in store.