Keynote
speaker Martin Hadlow, director of the UNESCO office in Kabul, described
how difficult it was to persuade journalists to cover good news stories
in any depth.
“Reporters
are interested in the extremes – the doom and gloom of war on one
hand, and surfing goat stories on the other. Nothing much in between
gets any consideration.” There was little interest, he said, when
he suggested a story about women teachers – regularly beaten up
by the Taliban when caught teaching at home – who were now working
for no pay to bring two million children back into full time education.
....
Carmen
Pedrosa, the veteran Philippines columnist, was fatalistic. “You
have to accept that American influence is so strong in my country and
stories involving the US are given much greater prominence than anything
else – the government has been very critical of journalists who
didn’t give their full support to the war against terrorism, for
instance.”
....
There
was also concern that new technologies which were supposed to make life
easier for journalists and allow them by-pass military obstruction were
less than helpful. A letter from a reporter who covered the crisis said:
“More time was spent in hotel rooms servicing and fixing some of
the gear than was spent on the road doing the job. The technology wins,
but the journalism loses.”
....
Simon
Dring, MD of Ekushey TV in Bangladesh, observed: “There were 3,500
reporters in Afghanistan – many of them freelances pushing harder
than they should for a story. Where was their safety training? Were
they properly insured? Absolutely not.”
Those
people became a danger to more seasoned professionals, said CNN New
Delhi bureau chief Satinder Bindra. “One of many totally untrained
journalists I encountered was determined to get closer to the front
– close enough to see the Taliban front line. I told him that if
we could see the Taliban, they could see us, and they’d shoot –
for what purpose? There was no story, no good picture, but because this
guy wanted to make a name for himself we all had to follow, just in
case.
“Until
every single journalist working in war zones has proper hostile environment
training, such things will keep happening.”
Dring
added that journalists should also be aware of how they behave. An Italian
woman journalist was shot dead by Taliban fighters, he said, after getting
out of a car wearing no head cover, in skin tight jeans, smoking a cigarette
on a Friday - the holiest day of the week.
And
Kain, whose company is one of the world’s leading hostile environment
training outfits, asked delegates not to forget the people without whom
journalists can’t operate in war zones. “The reporter might
be able to get away with all sorts of things, but what about his driver,
his local fixer and their families? We have a collective responsibility
to ensure that those people aren’t exposed to dangers we can walk
away from, but they can’t.”
