After spending two years as an MP, he pursued a career in journalism, working for Lord Beaverbrook as editor of the Evening Standard in 1938. He was the first journalist to discover how Adolf Hitler's name sold newspapers; in the years of appeasement, he made a feature of rewriting Mein Kampf week after week to sound the alarm and raise sales. During the war, Louis Mountbatten requested his services for SEAC, the paper that served the army in Burma. The two men helped to shape the Burma campaign and Owen was rewarded with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Owen returned to Fleet Street after the war, first as a contributor for the Daily Mail, and later as the paper's editor.