After a period working for Brook Productions (1988–89) Bunting joined "The Guardian" newspaper in 1990. Her posts at the newspaper over the years were as a news reporter, leader writer, religious affairs editor, associate editor and, for twelve years a columnist. Her first book, 'The Model Occupation, The Channel Islands under German Rule' published in 1995 was praised 'thoroughly unflinching, fair-minded, humane and sensitive' (Paul Johnson, Evening Standard). Another review by the historian Norman Stone said 'Bunting is a superb chronicler of what happened.. if you want a classic example of the dilemmas of Resistance, here it is.’ Yet the book was also highly controversial in that the author accused the islanders of passive collaboration with German occupying forces, implying that officials ‘helped identify Jews’ for deportation to their deaths, which constituted a ’shameful wartime past’. She repeated these claims in an article for the Guardian in January 2004 when the book was republished, stating, ""My book The Model Occupation played a modest part in the process, stirring up furious controversy on the islands"".