Maggie O'Kane is an Irish journalist and documentary film maker. She has been most associated withThe Guardian newspaper where she was a foreign correspondent who filed graphic stories fromSarajevo while it was undersiege between 1992 and 1996.^[1] She also contributed to theBBC from Bosnia.^[2] She has been editorial director of GuardianFilms, the paper's film unit, since 2004.^[3] Since 2017, she has been chair of the Board of theEuropean Press Prize.

O'Kane received her secondary education at Loreto Convent,Balbriggan,County Dublin, Ireland at the College of Commerce (now DIT) where she completed a journalism diploma. She received aB.A. degree in Politics and History atUniversity College Dublin before studying at the Institut des Journalistes en Europe in Paris.^{[citation needed]}

From 1982 to 1984, O'Kane worked for theSunday Tribune in Dublin and then in 1984 to 1989 forRTÉ. She then covered Eastern Europe as a freelance journalist contributing toThe Economist,The Sunday Times,The Guardian,The Irish Times andMail on Sunday. From 1992 to 1996, she covered theBosnian War forThe Guardian.^[4] Since 2003 she has been the editorial director forGuardian Films.^[5]

In its first three years, the company made 30 films – mostly for television – including theBaghdad Blogger reports, featuring Baghdad resident 'Salam Pax' – whose blogWhere is Raed? was printed inThe Guardian andNew York Times during the occupation of his city. They were shown onBBC Two'sNewsnight programme. Some of these were also shown in 2007 in two collections byCNN International.

Kane was also reporter inSex on the Streets, made byGuardianFilms for the UK'sChannel 4 television channel. It focussed on violence against women working as prostitutes.^[6] She was also reporter in the company'sSpiked – also for Channel 4 – about the usedate rape drugs. In the first half of 2007,GuardianFilms won two Amnesty International awards and aRTS award for its Iraq coverage.^{[citation needed]}

On 15 March 2013, it was reported by the Real News Network that O'Kane had just finished producing a documentary forGuardianFilms on the investigation of the war crimes committed in Iraq on behalf of the Bush administration, focusing on the roles played in the trickle-down military system. She argues, through her documentary, that the United States army, to quell Sunni rebellion and insurgency, armed and funded national, radical Shia militants to aid them in quelling Sunni insurgency. Subsequently, this Shia "police force" came to number approximately 12,000 men and are reported to have acted as, not containment forces, but as death squads, their killings reaching 3,000 per month at their height.^[7]

• 1992 UK Journalist of the Year
• 1993Amnesty International UK Media Awards with Ed Vulliamy,The Guardian for reports from Yugoslavia.
• 1996James Camer Memorusingial Trust Award for Journalism,
• 1999 Shortlisted, thet Internati.oIal UK Media Awards; Shortlisted asFeature Writer o the Year at theBritish Press Awards
• 2002:European Journalist of the Year
• 2018: 'Irish Red Cross journalism excellence award'

• GuardianFilms Website
• Guardian biography of O'Kane
• British Film Institute filmography to 2004
• Baghdad Blogger Salam Pax: Part 1 onCNN International, April 11, 2007
• Baghdad Blogger Salam Pax: Part 2 onCNN International, April 17, 2007
• mp4 video excerpt from one of "Salam Pax"'sBaghdad Blogger films
• mp4 video excerpt fromChernobyl: The Last Generation – executive producer: O'Kane