Death Lurks Behind a War Correspondent

Author: 
Essam Al-Ghalib, Arab News
Publication Date: 
Sun, 2004-09-19 03:00

JEDDAH, 19 September 2004 — While watching Al-Ekhbariya last week, I learned of the death of their 28-year-old Baghdad war correspondent, Mazen Al-Tomaisi. He was filming a segment in front of a burning American tank when a missile fired by US forces hit the crowd behind him. Mazen was killed instantly, blood spattering the camera filming what became his final moments. I watched in dismay as this talented young man with a promising life and career ahead of him gave his final report.

Covering a war is without doubt extremely dangerous. Each war correspondent has his or her own safety in mind at all times and his or her own limits as to how far to go to get the story. However, things are not always up to the journalist who finds himself or herself in life-threatening situations.

War correspondents have to accept a certain element of danger. They understand that every time they venture out, there is a possibility of injury or death. After being in a war zone for a matter of days, however, one becomes accustomed to the constant presence of danger. What would have been considered terrifying just a week before becomes strangely normal.

When I first arrived in Iraq, whenever a gun fight erupted nearby, I would seek immediate cover, as other journalists, more experienced than I, would run toward the gunbattle. After observing this a couple of times over a two-day period, I realized that those who ran toward the action, came back with no extra holes in themselves or their equipment, and had a better story and pictures than I. I felt that I, like them, should be more daring.

Many journalists say, “I have taken every precaution; it isn’t going to happen to me.” But sometimes it does.

When I first arrived in Baghdad, during the invasion, after spending two weeks in southern Iraq, I remember arriving at the Baghdad Sheraton Hotel, directly opposite the Palestine Hotel. While I was checking in, a car bomb exploded at the US Marine checkpoint outside the hotels. This was the same checkpoint I had passed through three minutes earlier. That blast killed one US Marine and injured several others.

The night before, a photographer and I had been robbed, beaten, shot at from extremely close range and held at gunpoint for several hours by Iraqi bandits. Ten days earlier, in Basra, our convoy of press vehicles found itself caught in a crossfire between British Army tanks and Iraqi resistance. A France TV2 cameraman traveling with us was hit by mortar shrapnel and suffered a broken knee. He was evacuated by British troops. Two weeks later, his replacement escaped serious injury or death after picking up a small shiny piece of metal from the ground to look at. When he tossed it away toward his jeep, it hit the ground and exploded, sending shrapnel flying through the windshield. Miraculously, no one was hurt.

Mazen Al-Tomaisi arrived in an area where American troops and equipment had come under fire and sustained damage as well as loss of life. Before he entered the area, he did not wait for the retaliatory US strike that was sure to come. He arrived moments after the Iraqi attack, and moments before the American retaliation. When the US strike came, Mazen, along with other innocent bystanders, was killed.

People’s hunger for news and information drives journalists and the networks or newspapers which employ them to try to out-do one another. Many journalists find personal satisfaction in being the ones to be first with the news. The truth is that when disaster strikes, journalists will always be there to bring the news, and inevitably, many more will be injured, kidnapped or killed.

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