Tag Archives: war reporting

‘I heard the mechanic click. I knew this is not good’: Joao Silva’s speech

The New York Times blog today published in full a speech given by photojournalist Joao Silva at the Bronx Documentary Center earlier this month. Silva was severely injured after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan last year.

Silva lost both legs below the knee, with months of recovery ahead of him at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. Just last month his work returned to the front pages, with an image accompanying a story about the closure of the very medical centre in which he was staying.

In his speech, published in full here, Silva describes that moment in October last year when “everything changed”.

I heard the mechanic click. I knew: this is not good. And I found myself lying face-down on the ground, engulfed in a cloud of dust, with the very clear knowledge that this has just happened and this is not good. I could see my legs were gone, and everybody around me was dazed. I was like: “Guys, I need help here.” And they turned around and saw me on the ground. They immediately sprang into action. I got dragged out of the kill zone, for safety reasons, to a patch of ground a few yards away.

Immediately, there were medics working on me. I picked up a camera, shot a few frames. The frames weren’t very good, quite frankly, but I was trying to record. I knew it wasn’t good, but I felt alive. Adrenaline kicked in. I was compos mentis; I was on top of things. So, I made some pictures. I dropped the camera, then I moved to Plan B, which was to pick up the satellite phone. I called my wife, Vivian, and told her: “My legs are gone, but I think I’m going to live.”

Silva also used his speech to offer advice to young photojournalists keen to enter the field. And the key is perseverance, he said.

It’s not an easy industry. It’s highly competitive. Every year there are literally thousands of young kids coming on the stage, a lot of them so talented. For freelancers, it’s a juggle every day. There’s only so much money going around. There’s only so many publications that will employ people. Even though demand for knowledge and content has grown, the market has shrunk. It’s really sad, but it’s a reality.

As for Silva’s own journey, he said it is likely to be another year before he is “fully functional”, but added that the ultimate goal is to get back to work.

Without a doubt, life is strange. Everything has changed. But I hope to pick up from where I left off, to a certain extent. In the meantime, I just take a little more courage and a little more perseverance and quite frankly, take as many drugs as I can.

Wannabe Hacks: Sunday Times foreign editor on ‘rough ride’ of profession

In an interesting interview with the Wannabe Hacks Sunday Times foreign editor Sean Ryan offers plenty of tips for journalists interested in becoming foreign correspondents. There are plenty of warnings too, calling on journalists to be sure to consider the realities of reporting from across the world:

There’s also a psychological toll which I think as an industry we’re becoming increasingly aware of which is the tendency to suffer from depression as a result of traumatic experiences that you’ll inevitability accumulate along the way. So we have had cases of post-traumatic distress disorder diagnosed in several of our reporters and it’s deeply distressing to witness. It takes a lot of treatment and a long time to recover from, although I’m pleased to say that in all cases, we’ve seen a full recovery and people have gone back to work and come to terms with what they’ve experienced in the past. But it’s not easy and it’s not good going into being a foreign correspondent thinking it’s all travel and meeting people and being on the frontline of a war because there’s a heavy price to pay.

Deadlines and frontlines: extracts from new book on journalism and the Afghanistan war

This week, Journalism.co.uk is publishing extracts from a new book about the media coverage of the Afghanistan war.

‘Afghanistan, War and the Media: Deadlines and Frontlines’ brings together the testimonies of frontline correspondents and detailed academic analysis, with a particular focus on the pros and cons of so-called ’embedded’ journalism.

Earlier today, we published an introduction to the book by journalism lecturer and co-editor John Mair, followed by a look at the dangers of ‘news management’ by Frontline Club founder and war correspondent Vaughan Smith.

Smith’s essay will be followed in the next three days by contributions from Channel 4 News presenter and war correspondent Alex Thomson, Sky News’ Asia correspondent Alex Crawford, and others.

All extracts published so far can be viewed at this link.

Iraqi journalists on the difficulty of dispassionate reporting

Writing on the Dart Center for Journalism site, Tanya Paperny discusses the experiences of Iraqi journalists who visited the US last month to share their thoughts on reporting in areas of conflict.

The discussion brought up the common moral dilemma for journalists – how should you act when a person’s life is in danger in front of you? The journalists said the impact of this decision can have serious consequences for their own safety.

Another participant, who explained that he frequently has to cover bombings and suicide, talked about the kinds of scenarios in which a bystander would attack a journalist. It’s a dilemma many journalists face when they are the first to arrive at the scene of a traumatic incident: Should one take pictures and take notes for a story or help the victims? Should one wait for a health worker to do the first aid? Some participants argued that by putting down their cameras and notebooks, even if to help an injured individual, they are failing to fulfill their role as dispassionate witnesses. But there is no easy answer; each situation is different. And if the reporter chooses to take pictures and conduct interviews, that is the kind of situation that the Iraqi journalists explained could lead to harrassment by onlookers.

See the full post here…

Women at war: Profiling the female foreign correspondents in Iraq

Despite the legions of women that have covered conflicts, whenever a female war correspondent is profiled the phrase ‘one of the few women to have made their name as a conflict reporter’ constantly creeps in. It creates a false impression that we are the few. Editors these days are as likely to send a woman correspondent into combat as a man.

A fascinating article looking at the network of female foreign correspondents reporting from Iraq, in particular Hannah Allam, a veteran reporter for McClatchy Newspapers, who is five months pregnant.

Full story on NPR at this link…

Robert Fisk: ‘Journalists have become prisoners of the language of power’

From a speech given by Robert Fisk, The Independent’s Middle East correspondent, to the fifth Al Jazeera annual forum on May 23:

Power and the media are not just about cosy relationships between journalists and political leaders, between editors and presidents. They are not just about the parasitic-osmotic relationship between supposedly honourable reporters and the nexus of power that runs between White House and state department and Pentagon, between Downing Street and the foreign office and the ministry of defence. In the western context, power and the media is about words – and the use of words.

It is about semantics.

It is about the employment of phrases and clauses and their origins. And it is about the misuse of history; and about our ignorance of history.

More and more today, we journalists have become prisoners of the language of power.

Fisk goes on to discuss the words and narratives inherited by journalists when reporting on conflict and war, and how this affects the media’s ability to challenge those in power if it is speaking the same language.

Full text of speech at this link…

FishbowlNY: Atlantic Media announces 2010 Michael Kelly Award finalists

Atlantic Media today announced the finalists for the 2010 Michael Kelly Award. The award recognises fearless journalism in the pursuit of truth.

The finalists are:

Ken Bensinger and Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times

For their coverage of malfunctioning cars produced and recalled by Toyota.

Sheri Fink, ProPublica

For her coverage of medical treatment in the wake of Hurricane Katrina

Jeffrey Gettleman, the New York Times

For his coverage of pirates in Somalia, the of spread of Islamic radicalism, and mass rape in eastern Congo.

David Rohde, the New York Times

For his coverage of his own kidnap and seven-month imprisonment by the Taliban, and his eventual escape.

Michael Kelly, a former editor of the Atlantic and the National Journal was killed while reporting from Iraq in 2003.

Full story at this link…

Stars and Stripes: US to screen journalists for ‘positive coverage’ before embedding

Story from the beginning of this week – the US government is using a PR firm to run background checks on journalists sent on embedded assignments with the US military.

“Rendon examines individual reporters’ recent work and determines whether the coverage was ‘positive’, ‘negative’ or ‘neutral’ compared to mission objectives, according to Rendon officials. It conducts similar analysis of general reporting trends about the war for the military and has been contracted for such work since 2005, according to the company,” reports Stars and Stripes.

Full story at this link…

MediaGuardian: Stephen Grey on the MoD’s restriction of war reporting

An interesting read from investigative journalist Stephen Grey on the UK’s Ministry of Defence affecting media coverage of soldier’s deaths in Afghanistan by restricting access to conflict zones in Afghanistan.

“As in so many wars, truth seems to be the first casualty of this conflict. There has been a devastating breakdown of relations between many defence correspondents and officialdom, journalists say,” writes Grey.

“Almost all journalists travelling with British forces are ordered to email their copy to the military’s press officers in Helmand before publication. Many fear that negative coverage could mean trips back to the frontline are cancelled or delayed,” he cites as one issue.

Full story at this link…