Don’t take it for granted that there was television news of the Iraq poll at the weekend. It’s fairly special that we could learn that 60% of Iraqis voted, despite more than 40 people being killed, including several suicide bombs in Baghdad.
It’s a bunch of journalists in that strife-torn country who brought us this news. Courageous people? Crazy people? Maybe a mixture? These are the individuals who have been plying their prominent trade in contemporary Iraq. And for every one of them who took their chances to bring us the story, there were many who did not.
An AFP report just ahead of the election said that France, Italy and Portugal had cautioned their country’s journalists to stay away from Iraq during the poll. Not so the United Kingdom, which wanted a powerful press presence. Thus, according to the report, the British government was ”sponsoring the election trip to Basra for 70 British-based journalists”.
You’d probably have to be a bit batty to join such a sponsored party. Indeed, even as an independent British journo in Baghdad, you would be suspected of being on your government’s payroll. Embracing this kind of ”embedded” status over the elections seems a surefire way to raise personal risks when reporting from Iraq.
The stakes are already appallingly high. At least 12 journalists were killed in Iraq in 2003, along with six assistants. The tolls for each category doubled in 2004. In short, it’s getting more dangerous, not less.
Exact figures of journalist casualties vary between sources such as Reporters sans Frontières and the Committee to Protect Journalists. But either way, Iraq remains the world’s most dangerous country for journalists to work in.
The death rates are dire, each case with its own horrible story. In addition to this knowledge, the reporters in Iraq are closely cognisant of numerous instances of kidnappings and beatings of journalists, and the bombings of media offices by a range of forces.
The problem these journalists face is that, as stated by the International Federation of Journalists, they are ”increasingly being considered as legitimate targets”. Intrinsically, then, covering the conflict in Iraq can be deadly — no matter, ultimately, whether you are a foreign journalist or a local sub-contracted to do the job.
Minimising the risks
The mounting deaths of media people in Iraq have prompted at least one journalist to query whether anything more can be done to minimise the risks. South African Sahm Venter has been pursuing this quest as part of her master’s thesis at Rhodes University.
Her study has focused in on a company safety policy for journalists at the world’s top two TV news agencies, Reuters and APTV. The policy, adopted jointly by these mega-rivals, sets out commendable steps to make life-threatening situations a little less dangerous for their staff. The protocols provide, for example, for:
- compulsory safety training (and retraining) so that reporters learn how to assess risks, negotiate in tense situations, and perform basic first aid;
- automatic access for journalists to get safety equipment such as bulletproof flak jackets;
and
- the right of journalists to refuse to cover dangerous assignments.
Venter has pinpointed several weaknesses in the policy:
First, because it was drawn up without all-inclusive consultation, the policy excludes the potential value of potential grassroots journalists’ contributions. One consequence, for instance, is that the policy fails to define the extent to which it covers freelancers, temporary ”fixers” and assistants.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, says Venter, you can see freelance work evident in ”some of the international television news channels’ coverage showing footage of a different quality than usual”. It’s unclear what safety and insurance systems operate for them.
Second, although journalists are aware of some of the provisions in the policy, many do not know that there is actually a detailed formal policy document. The full policy, therefore, has not been communicated to many of them, and they have not been asked to take part in any monitoring and review.
Third, actual implementation of the policy is patchy:
Provision is made for flak jackets to be available, but some journalists say that wearing the gear turns them into targets. The policy doesn’t address this problem.
Implementation concerning refresher training courses seems very weak.
While some journalists have indeed exercised their right to refuse to go to Iraq, for instance, others feel the need to make excuses to ”not jeopardise their career prospects”, says Venter. Power differentials lurk behind this behaviour, instead of being explicitly dealt with in the policy.
More naive and more reckless colleagues, many of whom are also less experienced professionally, may still sometimes go out on a ”shoot”, when it might, instead, have been safer to send nobody at all.
Venter acknowledges that journalists will continue to be exposed to danger, and she also accepts that a safety policy for journalists can never entirely be 100% effective. But her argument is that the news agencies could nonetheless improve their act — particularly in consultation with the people in the field in whose immediate interests the policy is supposed to operate.
She believes the policy flaws result from ”a mixture of elitism, inexperience with policy and an assumption that people in charge know best”. Her recommendation is: ”News managers should invite comment from a broad spectrum of journalists about the policy and should be genuinely interested in their responses.
”To push the policy to its optimum would need broad, formal and ongoing consultation, resources to upgrade security equipment, and access to ongoing safety training as well as a serious rethink about competitiveness between TV agencies.”
While the safety policy calls out for attention, it remains the case that we should never forget the risks taken by those who tell us what’s happening in the hot spots. And we should salute those who fell in reporting for us.