Alving was an editorial secretary at the weekly magazine "Idun" from 1928 to 1931, and then a journalist at "Dagens Nyheter" from 1934 to 1959. At the age of 27 she reported from the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and the Spanish Civil War. "Dagens Nyheter" also sent her as a reporter to write about the Finnish Winter War in 1939-40, the German occupation of Norway in 1940, and the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. As a foreign correspondent, she reported from the United States, Vietnam, Africa and the Far East over a number of years.