Peter Hitchens was born in the Crown Colony of Malta, where his father, a career naval officer, was stationed as part of the then Mediterranean Fleet of the Royal Navy. Hitchens originally hoped to become a naval officer himself, but an eye defect prevented him from doing so. He was educated at the Leys School and the Oxford College of Further Education before being accepted at the University of York, where he studied Philosophy and Politics and was a member of Alcuin College, graduating in 1973. He later commented that he "must have been a severe disappointment" to his parents after making sure he "would never get into Oxbridge" by sabotaging his own education, through actions which included being arrested breaking into a government fall-out shelter in Cambridge.
Journalism
Hitchens worked for the Daily Express between 1977 and 2000, initially as a reporter specialising in education and industrial and labour affairs, then as a political reporter, and subsequently as deputy political editor. Leaving parliamentary journalism to cover defence and diplomatic affairs, he reported on the decline and collapse of communist regimes in several Warsaw Pact countries, which culminated in a stint as Moscow correspondent and reporting on the final months of the Soviet Union and the early years of the Russian Federation in 1990-92. He took part in reporting the UK 1992 general election, closely following Neil Kinnock. He then became the Daily Express Washington correspondent. Returning to Britain in 1995, he became a commentator and columnist.  In 2000, Hitchens left the Daily Express after its acquisition by Richard Desmond; Hitchens stated that working for Desmond would have represented a moral conflict of interest. Hitchens joined The Mail on Sunday, where he has a weekly column and weblog in which he debates directly with readers. Hitchens has also written for The Spectator and The American Conservative magazines, and occasionally for more left-leaning publications such as The Guardian, Prospect, and the New Statesman. In 2010, Hitchens was described by Edward Lucas in The Economist as "a forceful, tenacious, eloquent and brave journalist. He lambasts woolly thinking and crooked behaviour at home and abroad."  After being shortlisted in 2007 and 2009, Hitchens won the Orwell Prize in political journalism in 2010. Peter Kellner, one of the Orwell Prize judges, described Hitchens's writing as being "as firm, polished and potentially lethal as a Guardsman's boot."

Q: what was Hitchens contribution to journalism
A: Hitchens worked for the Daily Express between 1977 and 2000,

Q: what was his role in the daily express?
A: initially as a reporter specialising in education and industrial and labour affairs, then as a political reporter, and subsequently as deputy political editor.

Q: when and why did he stop being a journalist?
A: unknown
what was the highlight of his journalist career
Hitchens won the Orwell Prize in political journalism in 2010.
Hitchens won the Orwell Prize in political journalism in 2010.