Guardian staff pay tribute to Europe editor Ian Traynor, who has died aged 60, saying “he was the journalist’s journalist”.
Traynor worked as a translator and editor of foreign broadcasts for the BBC, having studied Russian and German at Aberdeen University, before taking up a role as a sub-editor at the Guardian.
He later moved to Vienna, taking his family with him, to fill a freelance role covering central Europe for the paper in 1988 before becoming its Eastern Europe correspondent in 1990.
It was in 2007 that Traynor became Europe editor of the Guardian, having covered the Balkan wars, the reunification of Germany and the Srebrenica massacre.
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He died in Brussels on Saturday after a short illness
Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, said: “Ian was one of the finest reporters of his generation, who brought a rare level of knowledge and expertise to his work.
“He covered many epoch-defining events for the Guardian, from the break up of the Soviet Union to the Greek financial crisis, and he will be hugely missed by colleagues and readers alike.”
Jamie Wilson, the Guardian’s head of international news, said: “Ian was the journalist’s journalist.
“He was a brilliant foreign correspondent: supremely knowledgeable, always one step – but usually three – ahead of the opposition, a fantastic writer with that all too rare art of being able to pull a splash out of his back pocket on those days when there really was no news.
“The world will be a much poorer place without Ian reporting on it.”
Picture: Reuters
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