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Owen Bennett Jones introduces some very personal insights from correspondents, journalists and writers around the world. In theory, reporters are objective, above the fray, independent, fearless recounters of the facts and nothing but the facts. Authors of the so-called 'first draft of history' you find in the news. But of course in real life it’s more complicated than that – which facts? And how can you avoid your own past, your fears, your way of looking at the world affecting how you report? Our contributors reflect on whether their background has helped them peel back the spin - or sucked them into the story.

Gabriel Gatehouse accompanies a Shia brigade into the Iraqi town of Amerli, besieged for months by the fighters of Islamic State, and learns that he was not the only one on the convoy to feel apprehensive. Shaimaa Khalil explains how after a decade of wearing the hijab, she decided to set her headscarf aside, while Tim Whewell is questioned by some Israelis about the way media have covered the most recent conflict in Gaza.

Yana Lyushnevskaya finds that the past is - quite literally - another country for her home town of Simferopol in Crimea. While she grew up in an independent, post-Soviet Ukraine, her friends are now trying to adjust to life under Russian rule. Luis Fajardo senses a mix of paranoia, bravado and pride in the Mexico/US border town of Nogales, which brings back memories of his youth in Colombia, during the worst years of the struggle against the cartels. And, Christine Finn finds that her chances to go back and live in her childhood idyll - the island of Jersey - might have withered away, as time and money run out and she is no longer qualified to live in the place where she was born.

(Photo: Gabriel Gatehouse in the Iraqi town of Amerli. Credit: Ö÷²¥´óÐã)