How Lisette Reymer became an accidental war correspondent

Journalist Lisette Reymer never thought she would need her hostile environments training when she stepped into the role as Newshub's Europe correspondent.

Her predecessors covered political news overseas, like Brexit and the royals. But it was rare for Newshub bosses to deploy a team to warzone areas like she was, she told Sunday Morning.

Reymer has recounted covering the Israel-Gaza conflict, her time on the frontline in Ukraine and other chilling experiences in No, I Don't Get Danger Money, Confessions of an Accidental War Correspondent.

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The training was intense, she says. They were given a true sense of “what it feels like to have a gun held to your head or the back of your neck or [if you are] in a container in the middle of nowhere with everyone yelling different languages at you”.

“At one point, we were put in an interrogation situation where myself and the camera operator were being interrogated and he essentially sold me out to save himself and I was executed, which wasn't a super promising start to our relationship, but he did become and is, to this day, a very, very good friend of mine.”

Months later, the war erupted between Ukraine and Russia.

After settling in London for her role, Reymer and cameraman Daniel Pannett received the greenlight to cover the Ukraine-Russia conflict, on the same night US intelligence sources reported there would be aerial bombardments over Kyiv.

“That was probably the most scared I was going into Ukraine... Even though the war hadn't started, there was so many unknowns and it felt like anything could happen.”

For the first time, Reymer also writes about a fatal car crash which happened as they were heading to the Ukrainian frontlines, and how they were advised to put it behind them for the time being, because it was too dangerous to ponder on it in a fraught situation.

“It was terrible. One of the most defining moments of my life and that motivated me so immensely for the rest of that trip… it was pushing me and Daniel, the camera operator, to do things that probably weren't the most sensible. But because we were so desperate to do the best possible job and it got us into positions that, in retrospect, we shouldn't have been in.”

They hired security, she says, and it was these unique characters that inspired her to write the book.

“These special forces and the SAS guys that we worked with were just extraordinary. It was just so far from anything I'd met or engaged with on the farm in the Waikato.

“That first officer that we worked with - he's the closest thing to James Bond I've ever encountered. He was just like in a suit and had a Louis Vuitton bag slung over his shoulder… he eventually revealed he had a pistol in there that he kept hidden in a Louis Vuitton bag, because why not?

“But he was very secretive about his history and he didn't want photos. He said he didn't even have photos taken on his wedding day.”

One of the stories she covered while on the border of Poland is etched in her mind. A 10-year-old had burst into tears while speaking to Reymer about how she had to leave her father behind.

“As she said that, she just burst into tears and so did I and she kind of lunged into me and I just hugged her for a long time as she cried into my puffer jacket. And I just - I've never, ever forgotten her.”

Although Reymer says her superpower is she can practically sleep anywhere, anytime, there was a point where her mind was on high alert after a few incidents where she slept through air raid sirens.

She even had her clothes laid out on the way to the door in the order she would wear them, because “every second counted”.

One time she was so ready that she unknowingly went ahead of everyone else and ended up outside in the dark after curfew, with no clue where the shelter was, sirens blaring and facing an officer, without any ID.

“Like I was just absolute - like really idiotic behaviour… I didn't know what to do. So I just sprinted back to the hotel. It actually was probably one of the most terrifying moments I'd had because I thought I'm going to get either shot at by this police officer or I'm going to die in a missile attack. That was how my brain was spiralling. As I ran back into the foyer… the rest of the team were only just coming down from their rooms.”

Reymer’s 20-hour workdays became normal, the remaining four hours - which were meant for sleeping - were instead spent going back and forth to bomb shelters.

“Sometimes you'd be down there all night and into the early morning, which was when we'd start our most important live crosses. So it got to the point where I had a little makeup bag and I would be doing my makeup in the bomb shelters, getting ready for these live crosses that sometimes we'd have to do from the bomb shelters.”

Now back home and working for Stuff’s 3News, Reymer says she feels she’s just beginning to process everything that happened as well as the guilt.

“I feel that right now. Like, I don't want to be in Auckland when there are those wars taking place and those people that I've spoken to are still living in homes that are bombed or still living in refugee camps, like on the Turkish border with Syria and after those earthquakes, I'm sure that no one's come and made their situation any better than it was when I was there…

“There's a really awful, awful privilege that we get to walk away and leave those worlds and go back to our really nice homes.”

Still, she would do it all over again if she had the chance.

“I wish I could still be on the frontline and bringing those stories to New Zealanders, but I think also my mental health needed a break,” she says.

“I was super addicted to what I was doing and it’s exhausting, and it’s been good to have six months to get some decent sleep and see some family and actually not bail on all of my events that I commit to.”