Forlong commits suicide
Jason Deans
Monday October 6, 2003
Forlong: spent 10 years at Sky News
Former Sky News reporter James Forlong has committed suicide at his home on the East Sussex coast.
Forlong, who quit his job at Sky News in July following allegations that he faked a story during the Iraq war, was found dead at his house in Hove early on Saturday morning.
A Sussex police spokesman said there were no suspicious circumstances. A post mortem is due to be held tomorrow, with an inquest to be opened at a later date.
The head of Sky News, Nick Pollard, said: "This a terrible personal tragedy and a shocking blow for James's family. Everyone here sends their deepest sympathies to James's wife and family."
Forlong, who had worked for Sky News for 10 years, resigned after it emerged elements of a report he filed in March, purporting to show a cruise missile being launched from a Royal Navy submarine in the Gulf, were faked.
The allegations were first raised in July by a BBC documentary crew that was filming on the submarine, HMS Splendid, at the same time as Forlong.
Forlong handed in his notice on July 18 following an investigation into the allegations by Sky News executives. His producer, Lucy Chaytor, was cleared of any blame.
The episode was the sole blot on an otherwise distinguished career in journalism, which began at the West Sussex County Times and Brighton Evening Argus.
Forlong moved into broadcast journalism in 1984, when he joined the BBC as a radio reporter.
He moved to ITN in 1988 as a TV news correspondent and reported from Somalia, Syria, Lebanon and Bosnia.
Forlong was hired by Sky News in 1993 as senior foreign correspondent based in South Africa, where the channel had just opened its first bureau.
Over the next three-and-a-half years Forlong covered South Africa's first elections following the end of apartheid.
While based in South Africa Forlong also received two New York TV Festival awards for his coverage of the 1994 war and genocide in Rwanda.
He moved to Asia in 1997, becoming Sky News' first Beijing correspondent and winning another New York Festival medal for his coverage of the overthrow of President Suharto in Indonesia.
Forlong returned to London in 1999 and covered royal and defence stories including the deaths of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret and the Queen's golden jubilee.
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