Shot reporter inquest queries job pressure

By Jane Peel
BBC News

Kate Peyton's family said she did not want to go to Mogadishu Obituary: Kate Peyton

BBC journalist Kate Peyton was shot dead while on assignment in Mogadishu in February 2005.

An inquest into her death cleared the BBC of responsibility, but questioned whether contract journalists feel pressured into taking dangerous assignments.

It was an assignment to an area the BBC considered an "exceptionally high risk".

The capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, was lawless. The dangers there were deemed to be on the same scale as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those responsible for assessing the safety and security of BBC journalists were of the view that the situation there in February 2005, was at the "limits of acceptable risk", but that - with care - news teams could still be deployed.

It was with this background that Johannesburg-based Kate Peyton, the BBC's senior Africa producer, went with the freelance reporter Peter Greste to make a series of reports.

Opportunistic attack

The pair had been in Mogadishu just a few hours when she was shot once in the back as they left a hotel and were about to get in their vehicle.

It was probably an opportunistic attack on a Westerner by radical Islamist jihadists.

It was a tragedy for Kate Peyton's family, friends and colleagues. For them, the shooting raised wider concerns other than the simple, but sad, fact that another name would be added to the ever-growing list of journalists who had died doing their job.

Kate's family told the inquest into her death that she had not wanted to go to Mogadishu, but had felt she had no choice.

It's clear Kate did not want to go to Mogadishu. That is abundantly clear from all the evidence Coroner Dr Peter Dean

She was coming to the end of her employment contract and wanted to ensure that the contract was extended.

She felt she had to prove her commitment to her job after a series of discussions with her line manager about her "lack of focus".

One of those discussions had taken place on 2 February. Later that day, Kate Peyton was asked if she would be prepared to go to Somalia.

The BBC said all of its employees were aware of its stated policy: no-one is forced to go to a hostile environment. Kate Peyton knew that.

Peter Greste told the inquest that at no stage had she expressed any reluctance to go. She had seemed to be an enthusiastic supporter of the assignment, writing in one e-mail: "It sounds like a great trip."

The bureau chief in Johannesburg, Milton Nkosi, said he had assured her that he would be recommending to the decision-makers in London that her contract be renewed.

Kate Peyton died within hours of arriving in Mogadishu

The coroner, Dr Peter Dean, was concerned about how Kate's perception of the assignment may have differed from how her bosses saw it.

"It's clear Kate did not want to go to Mogadishu. That is abundantly clear from all the evidence," he said.

He said it was her belief, rightly or wrongly, that her job would be at considerable risk in future if she turned the assignment down.

Had she felt able to say no, she would not have been put in a risky situation – she would not have died.

The BBC is now being asked to do more to ensure that its employees whose contracts are under negotiation know that declining a trip to a hostile environment will not affect their job prospects.

The corporation says it intends to learn lessons from the tragedy of Kate Peyton's death.

Other media organisations, too, will need to look at their own arrangements for deploying journalists to dangerous locations.

'Good and careful'

Aidan White, the founder of the International News Safety Institute, said managers had a responsibility to consider a person's state of mind, particularly at a time when more and more journalists were being employed as freelances or on "precarious" contracts.

The other key issue at the inquest was the quality of the BBC's risk assessment process before the trip.

On that the coroner had no complaints. It had been "good and careful". It was, he said "entirely appropriate". The BBC, he said, was a leader in the field of protecting its journalists.

In the end, the coroner concluded that only one person was responsible for Kate Peyton's death and that was the gunman who pulled the trigger.

He recorded a verdict that she was unlawfully killed.