02,00

War training for journalists

02,13

Title: Press at War

02,20

This is fiction, It's war zone training for Dutch journalists, The

reason is obvious: between 1985 and 1989 114 jounalists died while reporting, In the last four years, 325 journalists died. An ever

increasing number of this group are freelancers 'orking for small

television networks, This report reveals the reason,

02,47

This is real. This is Ex-Yugoslavia, Freelance-cameraman Zivo

Krsticevic is making a television report in Karlovac,

03,21

Krsticevic dies after a grenade-attack.

Autumn '94 Tony Birtley is not a freelancer. He's working for the

nujor American network ABC.

Protected by a bulletproofed jacket. he's reporting from the

Bosnian trenches, His jacket costs 30,000 dollars,

03,52

Tony Birtley, ABC journalist

Working for a big company like ABC -News you have tremendous resources at your disposal, not  just people but money, you have

facilities, we have armoured cars,we have filmcrews, we have our own satellite dish, and all of that makes it so much easier to operate and get the stories out. Now if you're with a small company and you get a restricted, limited budget, you can't do half of what I do.  I'm very fortunate that I can cover these stories best as anybody can with the resources.  Small companies could come here. They could have many obstacles immediately.  Moneywise, you know, you'd have to spend 1200 dollars a day for an armoured car, and to go to some areas it's essential to have that, if you want to come back alive. 

Smaller companies get very upset.  Because, you know, we're not any better than the journalists in smaller companies.  We just have the opportunity to do more and to go to more places, and they can report things just as well.  But they don't have the money you need to be able to know that you're insured, because a lot of people do come here, freelancers in particular, and they're not insured and that means if anything happens to you and I know because I've been wounded, if you don't have a big company behind you, with insurance then you're on your own.  You lose work, you lose money, you can't support your family.  If you have one, so it's very important you have those kind of resources.  But a lot of people come here, without that kind of back-up, and for them it is extremely difficult.

05,22

Extra RAI-News

Good evening, this is an extra news bulletin.  We've just had a report in of an accident, a tragic accident, involving the RAI 3.  One of our colleagues, one of our friends, Ilaria Alpi, died an hour ago in Mogasishu.  She was killed together with her colleague, her cameramen.

06,00

Dead corpses of Ilaria Alpi and Miran Krovatin in Mogdishu,

Spring 1994. Italian journalist Ilaria Alpi, 'orking for RAI 3 and her freelance cameraman Miran Krovatin are killed in Somalia.

Compared to the major American networks, RAI 3 is a small network, concerning foreign newsgathering.

06,22

ILaria Alpi's mother

A friend of ours came to visit us.  He was very upset.  We thought he needed to be helped.  It didn't occur to me that there was something wrong with Ilaria.  He entered the house in a terrible state and kept repeating her name.  I told him Ilaria was in Mogadishu.  He looked at me and told me something happened.  And...

06,54

Ilaria's father

We asked what happened..."Ilaria is dead!" he said.  And then we realized she was dead...

07,06

Archive: I1aria in Mogadishu

07,07

Ilaria's father

On her last journey, Ilaria had to cut down expenses in a big way.  She had a very low budget: 2200 dollars.  She had 220 dollars for one day. 

For that, she had to hire a car, a satellite link and an escort.  But when you realize that a security guard costs 320 dollars a day...

Well....

So she decided to cut down on security.  She had just one very young guard.  He was still a kid, armed with some cast-off gun.  We know from another journalist who went there that he was protected by four heavily armed men.  He was attacked by four Somalian bandits.  The armed escort killed all four of them!  Ilaria just had one boy!  What could he do against six men?   And so she died...

08,32

Ilaria's funeral

08,47

llaria's mother

Ilaria told us CNN worked with a 18 person crew.  The journalists had a producer who fixed everything: the escort, the car.  The hotel and the contracts with the people who had to be interviewed.  The journalist just had to interview.  She admired that kind of working a lot...because she had to make the contacts by herself, she had to find a car, an escort...everything!

09,26

RAI Broadcast center

The RAI broadcast center in Rome. This used to be Ilaria's base.

Here her chief editor, Massimo Loche, decided to send her to

Somalia. though he knew some of the basic requirements

concerning his journalists safety, had not been fulfilled.

09,49

Massimo Loche, RAJ 3 chief  editor

I'm sure that if she ahd a better escort, better armed, more men, at least two cars, one for her and one for her armed escort, it would have been different.

I'm absolutely sure of that.  We try to give protection as good as possible.  But of course we don't have the same means as the big international networks.

Let's go back to your journalist's situation: the RAI cameramen didn't want to go with her to Somalia?

Yes that's right.  This was a big problem.  They didn't want to do it.  They said the protextion was not good enough.  There was a kind of a rebellion.  It was an opposition against the small budgets.  Not one RAI cameraman wanted to go there.  At last, we found a private crew.  They did want to go; it was Videoest.

11,05

The streets of Trieste - Travellingshot in the Videoest-offices

11,07

Trieste, an Italian city at the Slovenian border where Ilaria's

cameraman, had a private video company, Together 'ith another

freelance cameraman, Sergio Ferrari, Trieste used to be their homebase

Ferrari is convinced that in small networks, the pressure from

producers and chief editors on their journalists and cameramen is

growing and growing.

11,30

Sergio Ferrari, freelance cameraman Videoest

The point is that the producers have a prefixed idea of what they want to have.  So you're not really going to witness what's going on but to find out what your television really wants you to find.  That's my personal opinion, but I think it is true.  And of course if you have a briefing before ging and they say: OK, there is a war going on near Bosnia, there is shooting and they are attacking a town.  So you go down there and you have to bring back the guns shooting, the people dying and so on.

I want 30 dead, something like?

Yes, yes, unfortunately, it's so.

12,18

SVT cameraman Jiri Sire working in Berlin

Serbian army demonstration exercise

12,19

The Swedish cameraman Jiri Sire doesn't 'ork anymore in warzones, He's handicapped for life after a tragic accident. Jiri Sire

was under the same pressures, described by Ferrari, He was forced

by his producer to shoot pictures the other cameracrews wouldn't risk All this happened during a Serbian army demonstration

exercise,

12,50

Jiri Sire, SVT cameraman

So I was sent over there to stand there and film the exercise.  There I was, I was standing there and I felt like a man just without any clothes on.

13,01

Serbs' attack 'ith grenades - Sire is hit by one of those grenades

13 ,24

Jiri Sire

Suddenly it was a fact: I'd lost one of my eyes.

The other networks that were there, with their journalists and their reporters, just wanted to show the reality: a demonstration exercise from the Serb soldiers.  That's also the way the took their pictures.  However, my colleague wanted to bring something more than just an exercise...

14,08

Sirc is going down some stairs, having difficulties doing so,

14,10

Jiri Sire

You see, journalists have to go much further to show reality.  We're just a team of two.  Swedish television is no the BBC or another big network.  We just drive in an ordinary Mazda 626, say that we're from the Swedish television and ask: Where is the war?

14,37

Warpictures - CNN Logo

14,42

Jiri Sire

Nowadays, it has become very dangerous.  That's the reason why in Sweden they decided to buy the dangerous footage taken in warzones from the major networks.  It's much easier.

14,59

More and more small networks come to the same conclusion: they

buy their footage from the American networks,

15,06

Massimo Loche, RAJ 3 chief editor

Yes OK, we buy our footage, but that's not the same of course.  We can buy all our reports.  We don't even have to move... Look: The President from the United States in Poland.  It's just like we have our crew there.  But we're not there.  In such a situation, it doesn't matter.  A president arriving in another country that's always the same.  It's of no importance who's making the report.  But the most interesting facts, like wars, revolutions, you do want to feel them and to live them yourself!

15,43

Unlike the small networks, the major American networks allocat2

huge budgets for their foreign covering, In Somalia, ABC spent

more than 150,000 dollars a day on coverage!

15,53

ABC-anchorwoman

These scenes come to us from the town of Srebenica, a place almost impossible to get to.  ABC's Tony Birtley finally managed it last week in what can only be described as a heroic effort to let us see what's happening in Srebenica, Tony traveled by foot and by horseback to get in to the isolated area.  Since he arrived, he's run out of food and been injured by Serbian fire, but still, he smuggled out the story.

16,21

Tony Birtley, reporting for ABC

American planes have successfully airdropped aid into this area for the last five nights running.

16,28

Tony Birtley

The problem is that with just a few companies being able to afford it, they are here the whole time, they will report.  However they say it, is the interpretation that the world will take.  You know... a lot of companies take their material from the BBC and take their material from ABC, and if you do a story in a particular way, that's the way they're gonna take it.  It's always better in an ideal world, if everybody comes here and covers the story the way they see the story should be covered.

There's a problem as I said, that, you know, my interpretation will be taken by many smaller companies.  And we're not always right, we're not infallible as journalists you know.  You can make mistakes and sometimes a mistake is very costly.  And that gives a wrong interpretation and gives people the wrong idea.

17,13

The Egyptian freelancer Assad Taha had such an experience in

Bosnia. Even his own chief editor didn't believe his vision on a

particular situation,

17,23

Assad Taha MBC journalist

Two months ago, NATO attacked the Serbs around Sarajevo.  The major networks made a real thing of it!  But in the end, every journalist knew that the whole attack was just some people firing a broken and abandoned tank...and in addition to this NATO had warned the Serbs in order they could evacuate the area. 

It was very difficult to give some attention to what really happened in the middle of all this ‘show-reports', made by the major networks and their reports only mentioned the powerful NATO airstrike against the Serbs.'

17,57

William Schaap warns about the increasing power of the networks

18,01

William Schaap, New York Media Institute

The major networks have almost a monopoly on determining what's news and on getting their point of view across.  So, there are two things working against the independents and the small networks: one is that they very rarely have enough money to be able to compete in the same way unless they're very lucky and come across some angle that the major media have not found.  But also even when they can come up with the same coverage, they can't get the same exposure because of the near monopoly tat the major networks are gonna have in the first place.

18,38

CNN Buildil1g and newsrooms

18,52

CNN journalists are a'are of the fact they can work 'ith budgets

and facilities 'hich go beyond those of other smaller networks "

They admit that this could form a potential danger for a broader news supply,

19,05

Brian Cabell, CNN journalist

If you're entirely dependant on somebody else's pictures, of somebody else's information, on their perspective, certainly it's gonna be filtered down through them, to you, and so you don't know precisely what's going on.  You have to take the word of someone else, of a CNN, of an ABC as to what's going on.

You don't know, you don't see it first hand, it's not your pictures and so it's not entirely your story.  It's your story as filtered through the eyes of someone else.

So there is a problem with that, because you simply are not seeing the story yourself.  But there is the matter of cost, I understand that.  In Hairi for example, CNN had fifty individuals working in a bureau there.  We had several cameracrews, we essentially had set up another network in Hairi.

19,57

CNN -newsroom

20,03

Because of CNN big budgets: the safety of their journalists in

warzones is assured, This guarantee of safety is one of the reasons

why these big networks 'ork with such large crews, The man

involved in the safety for CNN journalists, reproaches the small

networks for sending freelancers to warzones without any

protection,

20,23

Larry Register, CNN producer

I just was recently in Rwanda and dropped some equipment off only.  There were a couple of freelance journalists who were going in from Kenya to Rwanda.  They were asking us if they could stay with us if we could provide them with this and with that.  We know that we can't and if we can, we will, but we've already stretched ourselves to the limit.  The question we always ask is why would an organization send someone to a place like this, without really knowing the dangers that exist.

20,52

CNN newsrooms

21,01

The fact that newscoverage from warzones is mainly a question of

big money, becomes very clear with the figures revealed by Eason

Jordan, This CNN top executive has always 'orked at the 'odel's

global newsmaker. During the Gulfwar, Peter Arnett had daily

contacts with Eason Jordan,

21,19

Eason Jordan, CNN Senior Vice President

If you don't have the experience of working in a place like Mogadishu or Sarajevo..these are not places were you parachute in and start covering news.  You need to have an infrastructure and you need to have people who have experience in that particular area, but just in some other warzone.

Probably the majority of the freelancers who go to these places do not take what CNN would consider to be proper measure to guard against a tragic accident.

At the same time, we have probably on of the most generous warzone insurance places of any journalist organization in the world.  It's a very costly business.  For instance, in the Gulf war, covering the Gulf war costed us about 25 million dollars.

22,13

The consequences of the fact that nowadays news from 'arzones is

made only by a few major networks, are currently being examined

at the Fordham university in New York.

22,23

Dr. Susan Anderson, Fordham University

The US-media, particular the big networks, are used to now be pretty much spoonfed at the live press conferences by the military officers and the pressbriefings and pretty much accepting in a combat situation what those people are telling them.  So you're not gonna get an alternative picture of what's going on from a broad perspective as that ability of freelancers and other voices narrows down to this one megalith of media coverage.

23,03

CPJ, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, are examining

the possibilities of smaller networks still working in 'arzones,

23,11

William A. Orme, Director CPJ

If you could fly directly into Sarajevo obviously it would be much safer.  There are planes that go everyday that the United Nations runs.  But the U.N. says that it is not their hob to make it easier for the pres to have access to the field of operations in Sarajevo.  Our view is that it is the U. N. responsibility because it is a U.N. peacekeeping operation and the only way the U.N. can operate is democratically.  You cannot have the informed consent of the member states of the U.N unless the citizens of those countries get the information about the conflict.  The U.N. is involved with, which they can only get from an independent press, an independent newsmedia.  SO going back to your earlier point about financial resources, in that sense you could say that there is a kind of an upperclass and lowerclass system.

24,03

Eric Biegala, French freelancer is filling his car with gasoline

24,09

Eric Biegala

This is a special tank to avoid thefts.

24,14

Eric Biegala is one of the few freelancers in Sarajevo who tries to

make news 'ithout the backing of a big network. He's been here

since the beginning of the war. Together with some others, he tries

to bring his own point of view in this conflict; inspite of the

financial clout of the big networks,

24,31

Eric Biegala, freelancer, driving his car in Sarajevo,

24,38

Eric Biegala

Of course financial backing makes a difference.  I just have to drive faster!  This car is a ‘protected' car, it's a lucky car.  It already received eight direct hit, but there was not one which entered, the body-work.  The bullets were stopped eighter on the rood, the wings or the welds...So.  I'm protected!

How you're protected?

By luck!

25,06

Travellings in the destroyed city of Sarajevo

25,49

Eric Biegala

There on the hills, you can see the frontline.  It's just a mile away.  If someone there decides to fire a grenade, we're in big trouble. 

Are the freelancers crazy?

That's the way life goes.  It's something you accept or you just don't  I know some guys who came here while it was real hell here.  They couldn't stand it.  Fear is a very personal matter.  It's different for each of us.  Some people can't stand it.  But you can't reproach them.  Some are more able to stand it than others, for a lot of reasons...If I die, I don't leave behind a wife of children!

26,42

Paul Marchand,

French freelancer, in his car

26,59

Paul Marchand

History of journalism took a 180 degree turn in Sarajevo.  What happened here, is a premiere for what will happen in other places.  The journalists became as cautious as soldiers.  It's a real scandal!  I'm from a generation which grew up with the Vietnam reports.  Those guys didn't hesitate.  When something happened, the left and did their thing.  Here, the don't leave! They think first, is it safe enough, can we go, can't we go...

Me, I pushed myself to the limit.  That's how I lost my arm.  I can't imagine working in such a commando-information style.  The armed cars, the helmets, the bulletproofed jackets, these journalist are more soldiers, than real journalists!

I was really ashamed to see the journalists after the shellings, leave the Holiday Inn garage and go out in the streets in their armed cars.  Very cautiously. They opened the window, the microphone came out of the armed car and they asked:  How does it feel to live in a bombarded town?  I was so ashamed...

28,21

Tony Birtley, ABC journalist

I thinks that's a bit of a generalization, you know, you would get examples of somebody not going out.  I know people who never left the TV-station.  They are somehow supported by this agency situation.  This was a system designed to safe people risking their lives, too many at the same time.  For instance, everything we do here is pool in Sarajevo, so that was to stop people, like four crews going out to one place when it's a risky area and putting four crews at risk.  Freelancers are difference, as I said before, the come here, they don't have any back-up, they often don't have any insurance, they have no guarantees.  They will make a living depending on what they get, and they won't get anything by sitting in the hotel or the TV-station, so they have to go out, they have to get the material, and the more risk they take, invariably, the better the material.  So, they have a problem.

29,12

Paul Marchand, freelancer

One could write a thesis about the news treatment in Sarajevo.  There were a lot of lies.  Many journalists were here, not to report, but to say: I was in Sarajevo.  It's a good thing for their CV.  But there was a minority of the journalists who went out in the streets to report.  The others, they just stayed in the bunkers.  You also have journalists who work in armed cars, under the protection of the British army.  This army protects them to do their job.  The big networks, that's the way they work!  Stations like the BBC even!  Organisations pretending they're on top of the newsgathering, protectors of the freedom.  They're just guys working under protection of the British army!  This is no journalism, this is touroperating.  I don't wanna talk about it anymore...

30,11

Tony Birtley, ABC journalist

They are saying to young people, freelancers; if you get me something really good and tasty and very hot, I'll be interested, but they won't give them a commission.  They say; if you get, we'll pay out.  So the person knows he has to go to that place if he wants to make money.  So I think some of the companies want their cake and eat it, they don't want to send their own people or people won't go.  But they want the freelancer without any ties to go and do that sort of thing for them.  And then be very happy and then they put it on their network and they say look, an exclusive by..whatever company it is, they will take the glory.  

Is that a healthy situation?

No I don't like that situation.  I don't like that situation.

30,52

The bodies of Ilaria Alpi and Miran Krovatin are taken away.

31,23

Credits

32,06

End