George Tyler Marshall

June 14, 1941 - November 10, 2025 George Tyler Marshall - known to everyone simply as Tyler - a distinguished and widely respected journalist whose nearly three-decade career at the Los Angeles Times took him all over the World, died Monday, 10 November. He passed after complications from cancer treatment. He was 84.

A veteran bureau chief and diplomatic correspondent, Marshall joined the Times in 1979 and helped shape its international coverage during a time of dramatic global change. His experience included serving as bureau chief in Bonn, London, Berlin, Brussels and Hong Kong as well as a diplomatic correspondent in Washington.

He also reported extensively from conflict zones, spending extended periods in Iraq and Afghanistan, often embedding with military and civilian groups to bring clarity to the human cost of war. Friends and colleagues recall his sense of decency and calm under pressure,and his commitment to understanding local realities rather than chasing headlines. In Pakistan, during one of the most volatile stretches of his career, he was among the last journalists to see Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl alive, a sad reminder of the risks faced by foreign correspondents in that era. Yet Marshall rarely spoke about danger, he focused instead on the duty to bear witness and report the facts, ensuring the world remained connected to those suffering conflict.

Having witnessed the devastation of war firsthand, he believed that military intervention was fraught with problems - "you really have no idea how it's going to end up," he once wrote - yet he also recognized the danger of doing nothing in the face of atrocities. He often referred to what he called "the Pottery Barn rule" of foreign policy: if you break it, you own it. In conversations with his children, he reminded them that the hardest questions in global affairs lie in drawing the line between action and restraint - a line, he said, that "is usually only clear in retrospect."

In 2004, Marshall was part of a Los Angeles Times team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their three-part series on the global impact of Walmart. The series examined how a gigantic corporation's practices ripple around the world - probing low prices, global supply chains and labor conditions - and Marshall's role in that, travelling often and rigorously investigating, became a benchmark for global business reporting.

After leaving daily reporting, Marshall continued to channel his awareness and compassion into humanitarian work, serving as Director of Communications for the International Medical Corps. In that role, he supported teams providing emergency relief and healthcare in conflict and disaster zones, often drawing on his deep understanding of the regions where he had once reported. For example he documented the war and famine in Yemen, and helped aid workers in the organisation share their own experiences by teaching them how to blog and tell their stories firsthand. He later explained to his family why this was so important to him:

"What I'm trying to do is replace the near total absence of western-style journalism describing what's happening on the ground in Yemen--either because it's too dangerous or the world simply doesn't care. As a result of this, the world outside has no idea how awful the conditions in Yemen are. The truth is that there really is no one writing powerfully about this war. We are there. We should at least try. So that's what I'm doing."

Colleagues described Marshall as someone who never let a story rest. Whether covering a diplomatic mission or a corporate report, he insisted on "everyone in the loop that needed to be." That phrase became something he returned to again and again - not just for his work but for how he lived his relationships, including with his family.

Born June 14, 1941 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Marshall served as an infantryman in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1959-63, earning the rank of sergeant before his honorable discharge. He often said that while the Marines taught him practical skills, what stayed with him most was the ethos - the habits of faithfulness to those beside you. He earned his B.A. in political science at Stanford University in 1967. After early years as a reporter in Sacramento and San Francisco, he joined McGraw-Hill World News in London and Bonn before his long tenure at the Times.

At the Times, Marshall's hallmark was a kind of empathetic persistence. He did not simply parachute in for a big story and leave, he followed through, stayed current, stayed in contact, made sure those he reported on were aware and connected. He believed that good journalism meant not only telling a story but keeping people informed, linked and respected.

This ethic extended to his private life: after his career, he turned his full attention to his family, becoming a devoted father to six children across three marriages, and grandfather to his nine grandchildren. Marshall's final years were not about retirement but about checking in frequently with grandchildren, attending meetings at their schools, supporting them with their climate change projects, keeping the email chain going, making sure the "loop" remained closed.

To his family, he was simply Dad - a night owl who could often be found late in his study with a packet of Ritz crackers and a beer, working long into the small hours before rising early for a walk with his beloved dog, Ella. He needed little sleep and loved good food from wherever life had taken him - Afghan stews, Indian curries, or the simple pleasures of a cheese-and-chutney sandwich or a traditional Thanksgiving meal. A lifelong baseball fan, he was a devoted supporter of the Baltimore Orioles, his mood often rising or falling with the team's fortunes. Country music was often playing in the background - songs of open roads and restless hearts that seemed to echo his own spirit. He had a surprising affection for Taylor Swift, admiring what he called her "clever lyrics and marketing genius dismissed by most adults as empty." His love of walking, which took him to explore the Appalachian Trail, lives on in all his children, who will continue to walk in his memory.

Marshall met his wife Steffie in the extraordinary days surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall. He interviewed her for a story and they fell in love. Steffie, who grew up in the former East Germany, had a deep appreciation for family and the simple pleasures of life, qualities Tyler felt were grounding after years spent moving across the World. Together they built a home and raised their two youngest children, and Steffie provided steady support through the long absences and uncertainties of a correspondent's life.

Marshall's long career often intertwined with history in deeply personal ways. In 1991, he took a six-week leave from the Times to collaborate with Madeleine Albright - then an academic - on a project studying political attitudes in newly liberated Eastern Europe. His son Johnny was born the very day their findings were due to be presented in Berlin; Albright gave the presentation alone, and Marshall later joked that he repaid her with a cigar when they finally reunited. Years later, as Washington bureau chief, he would go on to cover Albright during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State, accompanying her on diplomatic flights and navigating the delicate balance between friendship and professional rigor. He later recalled: "It was strange covering a friend like that, but I'd come down hard on her once in a while when I thought she deserved it. She understood and gave me few favors either. I was proud of the way we both handled it."

Marshall came from a family with deep American roots and a long tradition of public service, intellect, and creativity. He is a direct descendant of Chief Justice John Marshall of Virginia (1755–1835), the fourth Chief Justice of the United States and one of the principal architects of the nation's constitutional foundations.

His mother, Amory Cheney Marshall, was a member of the prominent Cheney family of Manchester, Connecticut, founders of the Cheney Brothers Silk Mills. The Cheneys were industrialists, philanthropists, and accomplished artists who helped shape both the town of Manchester and America's early textile industry.

Friends and relatives often remarked that he carried something of both legacies: the Marshall commitment to fairness and integrity, and the Cheney instinct for curiosity, creativity, and connection.

Among his family, the bond he shared with his brother Sandy was especially close. A retired international airline Captain with Pan Am, who shared Marshall's love of travel and curiosity about the world, Sandy remained a constant in his life. Even in illness, Marshall called or asked after his brother every day, and in a poignant symmetry, the two found themselves in hospital at the same time near the end - a final chapter in a lifelong journey they had, in many ways, taken together.

In a time of shrinking foreign bureaus, Marshall represented the era when purpose and integrity were solid in journalism. He reminded many colleagues that the story doesn't end at the deadline - it lives in the follow-up, the maintained contact, the connection with people. In his memory, his family asks that we keep one more thing in the loop: our own compassion and our connection to others.

Marshall is survived by his beloved wife, Steffie; his brother, John (Carla) Marshall; his children - David, Matthew (Evelyn), John (Annie), Mowena, Rosalie, and Hope (Noah); and his grandchildren – Davina, Noah, Luke, Luka, Maya, Toby, Matthias, Felix and Summer.