Reprinted from the Gainesville Sun
Gainesville, Florida, Oct. 3, 2003
By Bob Arndorfer
Sun staff writer
Reporting from the front lines of world conflict often is portrayed in movies and literature as a glamorous adventure.But more often, war coverage is boring, frustrating and, these days, increasingly dangerous, a panel of three international journalists who have been there told an audience at the University of Florida on Thursday.
"You're often dealing with tough bureaucratic stuff, or trying to find reliable sources or translators," said Finnish newspaper reporter Kaius Niemi, who has covered conflicts from Kosovo to Afghanistan and Iraq for the Helsinki newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. "What you get is a lot of rumors, and they can be from 'reliable' sources. It can be frustrating."
He was among nine foreign print and broadcast reporters and editors who visited UF's College of Journalism and Communications for a one-day symposium on the role of the news media in a changing world. All are on a four-month fellowship sponsored by the World Press Institute, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.
Since their arrival in the United States in July, the journalists have crisscrossed the country examining American life and culture. They've visited newsrooms and campuses and talked with everyday Americans and such luminaries as Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.
During several sessions Thursday, the visiting journalists discussed a range of topics, from press freedom in their countries to covering war and other conflicts. Three of them spoke during the panel on war reporting, whose audience of about 70 was made up mostly of UF journalism students.
"The facts are the first casualties in war," said Nevin Sungur of Turkey, a reporter for NTV News Channel, a television station based in Istanbul.She said the power of the media in today's world sometimes makes front-line journalism a tool of propaganda. In Afghanistan and Iraq, she said, there is the American media and Al-Jazeera, the Arabic news channel."Each of them is looking at it with a different mind," said Sungur, whose war coverage has ranged from Iraq to Sarajevo.
She questioned the notion of "embedded" journalism that, particularly in Iraq, puts reporters and photographers inside military units."It gave them access to covering the stories of (the units)," Sungur said, "but at the same time they were being part of the propaganda."The danger of reporting from hot spots was expressed most vividly by Shujaat Bukhari, a special correspondent for The Hindu, an English-language newspaper based in India.
During his 13 years covering the conflict in Kashmir, a disputed region between India and Pakistan, Bukhari said, he was beaten "umpteen" times, kidnapped twice and had gunmen appear at his door. He witnessed the death of a colleague, a photographer, who was blown up about 20 feet in front of him by a mine.
"The danger is very much there," he said. "But over time we try to live with it."
John Ullmann, executive director of the World Press Institute and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, said Thursday's symposium was valuable to students in several ways."They learn about freedom of the press as it is practiced around the world," said Ullmann, who accompanied the international fellows. "And it's different from the United States — here it's unlikely you'll be killed, beaten or kidnapped.
"And these (international) journalists almost always look at things differently," he said. "So it's a chance for students to be exposed to a perspective they might not ever be exposed to. We can learn a lot from them."
