Capturing Asia

The excitement, danger and drama of life as a news cameraman recording history as it happens. 'tHE MUSt-READ StORY OF tHE MAN WHO tAUGHt US ASIA' – PHILIP WILLIAMS, ABC CORRESPONDENt AN ABC CAMERAMAN'S JOURNEY tHROUGH MOMENtOUS EVENtS AND tURBULENt HIStORY 'this is what Willie taught his troop of raw novices: he kept them away from trouble, warning where the boundaries were. He blunted their sharp edges and demonstrated that the colour grey had many more shades than black and white. He taught them the value of smiling when there was nothing to smile about … he is the reason we fell in love with Asia.' Warwick Beutler, former ABC correspondent Cameraman Willie Phua has unflinchingly stood beside a bevy of ABC correspondents in Asia, recording murderous race riots in Singapore and Malaysia, genocide in East Pakistan, bloody coups in thailand, the assassination of Indira Gandhi in India, the rise of People's Power in the Philippines and the war in Afghanistan. He was on the spot for the revolution that overthrew Marcos in the Philippines, and his video record of a young protester challenging the tanks in tiananmen Square is legendary. In the course of more than thirty years at work he has earned the unstinting admiration of just about every ABC journalist taken under his wing, and they consider him the man who 'taught them Asia'. With unprecedented access to the Phua dynasty of cameramen, ABC correspondents and the ABC archives, author Bob Wurth brings to life all the excitement, danger and drama of life as a news cameraman recording history in this most volatile part of the world.