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Words & Reflectionsthere new security issues for those reportingon terrorism, as Daniel Pearlwas, in the wake of the September 11,2001 attacks …?”From Part II: Who is at Risk?“Recent fatalities in Iraq illustrate thedangers faced by war correspondents.But the hazards of war coverage are notlimited to combat. During and after thethree weeks of fighting in Iraq, severaljournalists died from either medicalconditions that proved fatal in the fieldor from road accidents. … But even allthe risks of reporting in a conflict zonecomprise only a small part of the risksjournalists face worldwide. In fact, forevery journalist killed in crossfire, threeare targeted for murder. Between 1993and 2002, CPJ research indicates that366 journalists have been killed whileconducting their work; of that total, 60journalists, or 16 percent, died incrossfire, while 277 journalists, or 76percent, were murdered in reprisal fortheir reporting. The remaining journalistswere killed on the job in othersituations, such as violent street demonstrations.”From Part IV: Reporting inHostile Areas: MinimizingRisks“Journalists covering conflicts shouldnever carry arms or travel with otherjournalists who carry weapons. Doingso jeopardizes a journalist’s status as aneutral observer and can make combatantsview correspondents as legitimatemilitary targets. … In some particularlydangerous conflicts,journalists have hired armed guards.The practice first became widespreadamong television crews and reporterscovering Somalia in the early 1990’safter journalists traveling withoutarmed guards were robbed at gunpoint.Journalists who use armedguards, however, should recognize thatthey may be jeopardizing their status asneutral observers. For example, CNNcrews used armed guards in northernIraq in 2003. On one occasion, unidentifiedattackers shot CNN’s vehicle,which was clearly marked with ‘Press,’and CNN’s hired guard returned fire.The gunmen continued to shoot thevehicle as it turned around and droveaway. CNN International president,Chris Cramer, defended the network’suse of armed guards as necessary toprotect CNN personnel in Iraq. RobertMenard, secretary-general of the Parisbasedpress freedom watchdog groupReporters san Frontieres, however,criticized CNN, saying that the practice‘risks endangering all other reporters.’”From Part IV: Reporting inHostile Areas: BattlefieldChoices“Although the term ‘embedding,’ orplacing journalists with troops in wartime,was recently coined by U.S. DefenseDepartment officials in 2002, thepractice is as old as the earliest warcorrespondents. … From at least theU.S. Civil War through the first twoworld wars, journalists who accompaniedcombatants were only able to filereports through military censors. …“Journalists briefly enjoyed more autonomyduring the Korean War, althoughit was not until the VietnamWar that many correspondents wereable to file without censorship. Thispractice changed remarkably with subsequentconflicts. U.S. officials, alongwith their local allies, tried to keepjournalists away from the fighting in ElSalvador, Grenada, Panama, the 1991Gulf War, and Afghanistan. …“U.S. officials changed policy, however,during the 2003 war in Iraq. Bythe time the three-week conflict wasover, more than 800 journalists of variousnationalities, including correspondentsreporting in English and Arabic,had been embedded with either U.S. orU.K. forces. … Whether to embed withany armed forces is a decision involvingtrade-offs. A primary advantage ofembedding is that a journalist will geta firsthand, frontline view of armedforces in action. But there are alsodisadvantages. An embedded journalistis only able to cover that single partof the story, and his or her reportingcan become one-sided as a result ofbecoming too close to the soldiers. …”“Since as early as the Vietnam War,U.S. Defense Department officials haveused the term ‘unilaterals’ to describejournalists covering conflicts independently.Such reporting provides invaluableand compelling dispatches, butsometimes at the price of high personalrisk. … In one particularly chillingseries of episodes, on the morningof April 8, 2003, U.S.-led forces fired onthe offices of two international newsbroadcasters and a hotel filled withjournalists in three separate attacks inBaghdad. One journalist died in themissile strike on the Al Jazeera networkstudio, equipment was damaged at theAbu Dhabi TV studio, and two cameramendied when a tank fired on thePalestine Hotel, which was being usedas a base of operations by about 100journalists at the time. …“According to CPJ, U.S. Defense Departmentofficials, as well as commanderson the ground in Baghdad, knewthat the Palestine Hotel was full ofinternational journalists and were intenton not hitting it. However, thesesenior officers apparently failed to conveytheir concern to the tank commanderwho fired on the hotel.” ■90 Nieman Reports / Winter 2003