Philip Jacobson

For the London goldsmith, seePhilip Jacobson (goldsmith).For the Seattle architect and professor, seePhillip Jacobson.

Philip Jacobson

Philip Samuel Jacobson(10 September 1938 – 1 January 2018) was a British journalist andwar correspondentknown for his reporting forThe Sunday TimesInsight team of the events ofBloody Sundayin Northern Ireland in 1972.

Early life and family

Philip Jacobson was born on 10 September 1938 toSydney, later Baron, Jacobson,and his wife. His father was political editor of theDaily Mirrorand later editor of theDaily HeraldandThe Sun.Jacobson was brought up inStanmore,Middlesex, and educated in Dorset and at schools elsewhere. He did his national service in a tank regiment that was stationed in Malaya during theemergency.Afterwards he took a degree in politics at theLondon School of Economics.

He married Ann Mathison in 1967 and they had two sons, both of whom work in journalism.

Career

Jacobson started his journalistic career as a heating specialist onIdeal Homemagazine. He was later financial correspondent forThe Timesin New York. In 1970 he joinedThe Sunday Timeswhere he reported on foreign wars in Bangladesh, Cyprus, Lebanon, Vietnam, El Salvador and Chad among others. He was briefly imprisoned in Calcutta. He covered theYom Kippur Warin 1973 in which his successor was killed. From 1987 to 1992 he was the Paris correspondent forThe Times.He was best known for his reporting withPeter PringleforThe Sunday TimesInsight team of the events of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972, which the pair turned into a book in 2000 titledThose are real bullets, aren't they?

In 1977, he and other members ofThe Sunday TimesInsight team produced a book onAristotle Onassis(died 1975). It was criticised byTaki TheodoracopulosinThe Spectatorfor opportunism, an ironic lack of insight and being largely derivative of existing sources.In 2009, Jacobson won the feature writer of the year award for his reporting on the legal costs of theBloody Sunday Inquiryinto that day.He freelanced during his later career, writing for theDaily Telegraph,Mail on Sunday,Daily MailandMail Online.

Among the journalistic legends that attach to him is one of an eight-hour lunch with his colleague Peter Pringle inBogotá,Colombia, in which 13 bottles of alcohol were drunk, leading to applause from the staff when the diners left the restaurant,and his lack of success in horse race betting which he sometimes conducted using a mobile phone while reporting from the battlefield.

Death

Jacobson died at the age of 79 on 1 January 2018 after contractingmeningitis.His funeral was atMortlake Crematorium.

Selected publications

• Aristotle Onassis.Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1977. (With Nicholas Fraser, Mark Ottaway, and Lewis Chester)ISBN978-0-297-77426-6
• Those are real bullets, aren't they? Bloody Sunday, Derry, 30 January 1972.Fourth Estate, London, 2000. (With Peter Pringle)ISBN1-84115-316-8