A globetrotting former war reporter has been unveiled as the new editor of a local weekly.

Mick O’Reilly has taken charge of the Cambrian News after a career that has seen him work around the world.

Over the course of 40 years in journalism, Mick, pictured, has covered conflicts in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, and reported from Guantanamo Bay.

He joins the Aberystwyth-based News after the departure of Natalie Lawson, who had edited the Tindle-owned weekly since October 2019.

Natalie has now taken up a new role as deputy head of communications on climate change for the Welsh Government.

Dublin native Mick, 61, began his career on regional and daily titles in the Republic of Ireland in the early 1980s.

He spent two decades working for Canadian newspapers from 1988 – including the Toronto Sun, Ottawa Sun and Toronto Globe and Mail – although he briefly returned to Europe in the mid-1990s to work in London and Dublin.

He then worked for a decade in the Middle East before covering Europe as a foreign correspondent for five years with the Gulf News.

Mick told HTFP: “I’m excited to have taken the helm at Cambrian News. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a new community, a new city, new country or continent, news is still news.”

In a message to readers of the News, Mick added: All of the horrors and events that I have witnessed have confirmed what I have known to be true from the first time I started pecking at a typewriter: Everybody has a story to tell, regardless of who and where you live.

“Here, at the Cambrian News, we want to tell those stories. I want to make sure those stories are told. And that’s why, dear readers, I would encourage you to let us know what you think – and why.”