By Latifah Muhammad
From covering battles on the front lines, to covering issues through school radio stations, journalists are using different tactics to cover war.
The recent injuries of ABC News anchorman Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, who were riding in a convoy when it was struck by an explosive device in January, is an example of how journalists are putting themselves in harm's way to cover stories, whether it's through broadcast or print.
“They go after the story,” said Ed Kamlan, former night city editor for the Long Beach Press-Telegram. In the late '90s, Kamlan went to Nagorno-Karabach to cover a civil war that broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over control of the country. At the time, he was working for the Glendale News-Press and went to the country with a medical outreach team that was delivering supplies.
Though he was not on the “frontline” during the war, Kamlan said that he still saw a destructive environment. He said a section of the hotel that he stayed in was missing. “They fired missiles into the city while I was there,” he said. “I had an incredible experience. It made me realize that we write about people. At the end of the day stories are about people.”
In response to the media coverage of the war in Iraq, Kamlan said that publications, such as the Press-Telegram, report stories that the community has a specific interest in. “The American press is focusing on the soldiers because that's of interest to the people here.”
Kamlan said that the press does put too much emphasis on the number of Americans killed and not enough coverage on how Iraq has changed, but that it is done for a reason. “They know their audience, just like we [the Press-Telegram] know ours.”
In response to Bob Woodruff's injury, Kamlan said that journalists know that there is a risk involved when they decide to go overseas to cover the war. However, he said that precautions are taken to help ensure the safety of reporters.
“Sadly, journalism is a very dangerous job,” he said. As an American journalist, Kamlan said that Americans take press freedom for granted. He said journalists are targeted, killed and made examples of in other countries for speaking out against the government, or printing non-favorable stories about politicians.
However, other U.S. media outlets are taking a different approach to covering the war.
Amelia Templeton is a college student at Swarthmore College, in Swarthmore, Pa. and has been working with a show called War News Radio.Two years ago, Templeton saw the documentary, "The Control Room," which talked about Al-Jazeera and media coverage of the Iraq war. The documentary peaked her interest in getting involved in covering the war from a different perspective. She joined War News Radio one year later.
“We really try to rely as much as possible on Iraqi voices,” Templeton said. The group of college students conduct several phone interviews of Iraqi citizens (both in America and overseas), American soldiers, and journalists to get stories that Templeton said are not often covered by the mainstream media. “We don't face some of the commercial pressures that mainstream media face,” she said. “This conflict is reduced to a couple of sound bites in the evening news.”
Because War News Radio is a show run by a private university, stories run up to 10 minutes long and focus on how Iraqi people feel about the war, their daily lives, and how their lives have changed.
Templeton said she does plan on traveling to Iraq to do some reporting after graduation. “Reporters on the ground in Iraq face a huge number of obstacles,” she said. Despite the threat of kidnapping, bodily harm, and even death, Templeton said that she wants to report from Iraq but will focus on visiting less dangerous areas. “I would not go to Baghdad, I don't think it's smart,” she said. “I'm not interested in getting myself killed and certainly not getting anyone else killed.”
In a discussion panel held at Cal State Long Beach in November 2005, CSULB journalism professor Ron Milligan said the he saw parallels between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War. “You have to cover what's going on and who's getting the upper hand,” he said. Milligan who covered the Vietnam War, said that the media had complete cooperation from the military. He added that due to bad press, the media has begun embedding correspondents.
Regardless of the dangers that may occur as a result of covering wars in countries such as Iraq and Vietnam, journalists continue to travel oversees and seek stories relating to the war.
Last update: 5/11/06
