124 journalists and media staff have been killed in Iraq since 2003
|
In war zones it is sometimes only possible for journalists to report by "embedding" with military units - but is even that getting too dangerous?
It's a question many news executives are asking after the deaths in Baghdad of the British CBS crew, the cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan.
The roadside bomb attack which killed the two highly-experienced and well-liked British crew also left their correspondent, Kimberly Dozier, with a head full of shrapnel. It followed a similar blast which badly hurt ABC's Bob Woodruff and his cameraman, Doug Vogt.
Earlier this month, in southern Afghanistan, cameraman Nik Millard and I had a lucky escape when a suicide bomber rammed into the side of the Canadian military convoy we had joined to film.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the safety calculus of embedding is the same: less risk of kidnapping for more risk of being bombed or ambushed. Embedded journalists face the same dangers as the military unit they join.
 |
The Taleban have declared their wish to capture and behead a western journalist
|
When the CBS story broke, some programme editors wanted to write it as a "spike in the violence". It wasn't. We were just paying more attention. On even a good day in Iraq, the Coalition might record 80 separate attacks on its forces.
In countless other conflicts, it is precisely the risk of being with troops who will draw fire which makes journalists careful about embedding: far better to trade on your neutrality as a correspondent and a civilian.
Kidnapping threat
But in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is scant respect for this neutrality. The kidnapping threat in Iraq is well known but in Afghanistan, too, the Taleban have declared their wish to capture and behead a western journalist.
And there are other risks in working independently in a place where your nation is a combatant. One of my most sobering experiences in Iraq was being in the midst of the hundreds of thousands of Shiite worshippers in Kerbala who were hit by six simultaneous suicide bombs.
As the smoke cleared, the crowd turned with frightening rapidity on any westerners they could find, blaming the Coalition for the attack. A number of journalists were badly beaten.
Iraq is the most dangerous country for journalists, according to the INSI
|
Despite such problems, the BBC's Baghdad bureau still manages almost every day to get out and see at first hand the conflict in the city. So in Baghdad, embedding gives us one more opportunity to be where the story is. Outside the capital, places like Ramadi, Falluja, Baquba, to name a few, would be impossible to reach without the military unless you take foolhardy risks.
Although the military are at risk of attack, they are also best equipped to deal with it. Nik Millard and I were saved by a 10 inch thick slab of Canadian armour in the suicide bombing in Afghanistan. Four civilians nearby were killed. Embedding with the Coalition in Iraq means you are part of the - by now tried and tested - military system of casualty evacuation.
But embedding is not just a way to otherwise inaccessible parts of the story. Coalition troops are the story. You do get the famous key-hole view of the embed: you go where your unit goes and see what it sees. (This is why, in Iraq and Afghanistan, we make great efforts to use local stringers to get the other side of the story.)
US v. British
In general, I've found the US experience of embedding better than the British. The Americans tend to put you in a unit and leave you to get on with it, without press officer. By contrast, on a recent trip to Basra, three journalists -- myself included -- told the head of media ops that we hadn't been so intensively "mindered" in Iraq since Saddam's time.
The enormous political sensitivities of Iraq mean that, often, British commanders in the field see precious little upside, and a lot of potential risk, in allowing journalists to have access. The MoD is very quick to get on the phone to the field command if they don't like the coverage.
|
The trick of embedding is just to insert yourself at the right time and in the right place
|
Occasionally this works in your favour. We were able to get down to Basra on the same day as the fatal helicopter crash because, so I was told, Downing Street wanted the reassuring and credible figure of a senior uniformed officer saying on camera that things were OK, really, in southern Iraq.
When you do manage to get past the MoD press office, and your military minder, British officers in the field are usually very pleased to have cameras along. They want coverage of their units.
In Afghanistan recently, Parachute Regiment troops even gave us their home movies of being in action.
The trick of embedding is just to insert yourself at the right time and in the right place, and then see what happens. As Martin Bell said, in TV journalism, but above all in war reporting, "access is everything".
And embedding gives you access.
