“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak, I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent”
-Rabbi A.Y. Kook
Reporting from a war zone is dangerous. Deadly dangerous.
This past week three journalists working for American news outlets were killed covering the war in Ukraine. Another reporter from Fox News Channel was badly injured.
The words used to describe these journalists were brave, selfless, passionate. I would also call them heroes.
War correspondents don’t get sent to cover conflict, they go without being asked. And thank God they go because we need them to be there.
What would coverage of World War Two have been like if not for Ernie Pyle, Margaret Bourke-White and Edward R. Murrow?
What would coverage of the Viet Nam War have been like if not for Walter Cronkite, Marlene Sanders and Ed Bradley?
Have you seen CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward? Her reporting is fearless and phenominal.
Covering a foreign war takes lots of savvy and lots of guts.
But covering the news from our own downtowns and main streets, has become perilous and precarious as well.
Prior to creating Friendwithoutbenefits.com, I spent 14 years in charge of one of New York City’s large local TV news operations and I also oversaw the news departments the company owned in a dozen other cities.
Let me tell you from experience, local news coverage has become more and more fraught with danger.
Reporters and photographers are now being held up and robbed at gun point and knife point and their equipment stolen.
News vans are being hijacked. Reporters are being threatened, harassed and harangued. And sometimes they are murdered.
In 2015, a young reporter and her photojournalist were shot and killed in Roanoke, Virginia while conducting a live interview.
During the demonstrations and riots following the George Floyd verdict in Minneapolis, the situation on the streets reached a critical level. Reporters became targets, actual targets of the protestors. I had many worrisome conversations with the head of our news operations in Minneapolis and other cities, going over and over coverage plans that served our viewers but also kept our people safe.
I brought in security experts to coach our people in the field on what to do if they felt they were in danger and how to avoid a dangerous situation in the first place.
It’s one thing to be reporting in the midst of an angry mob. In our lawless cities, danger can come from anyplace at anytime.
Danger can come from a stray or not so stray bullet fired from an illegal gun. It can come from a freed felon looking for his next victim or his 15 minutes of infamy. It can come from a sick Tik-Tok challenge or danger can come from seemingly “normal” people who have been stirred up by reckless politicians demonizing journalists and their work.
During my long TV news career I was often asked what kept me up at night. The answer, actually, was quite simple. What preyed on my mind the most was that one of our journalists in the field would be injured or heaven forbid, killed.
I had a hard and fast rule, articulated many, many times. No story was worth it. No story was worth one of my people getting hurt or worse. I had their backs 100 percent. I never criticized them if they pulled up stakes and got the hell out of a dangerous location. They never had to ask permission.
I tried not to put them in harm’s way in the first place. I don’t know why some TV news managers still insist on reporters being live just for live’s sake. Standing on a dark, abandoned street describing a crime that took place hours prior, exposing your staff to all sorts of risks, is to my way of thinking, ridiculous and reckless.
Put it all on tape and move on.
Who will continue to watch out for the local news reporters and photographers? Who stares at the ceiling at night worrying about them? The corporate beancounters, poring over their P & L’s? Trying to squeeze every dime out of local news departments? I don’t think so. It was guys like me. Women and men like me.
I mourn the deaths of those courageous journalists in Ukraine and I continue to pray for the safety of the men and women who report the news from the mean streets of the United States.
2 thoughts on “Danger Zones”
was not aware of how serious the danger in North America was – as always, well written, and on target, thank you
Danger or death to any innocent is not where our society should be evolving. Unfortunately, it has become increasing prevalent because of where our society has evolved. Perhaps this is what you think Putin sees in your previous article about him. There are many prevailing forces contributing to our society’s relative lawless degeneration. Civility is certainly lost when “stirred up by reckless politicians demonizing journalists and their work.” As the saying goes, “if gold rusts, what would common metals do.” The U.S. had past rabblerousers, including Wallace in the 60s, McCarthy in the 50s, and Father Conklin in the 30s. In contrast to previous decades, our current situation may seem worse because of the additional divisive input from social and other media sources. As you correctly point out, corporate media powers, and others, seeking ratings and viewership “buzz” have often turned news programing into a reality show with all its insidious consequences. They seem to add fuel to fire, sometimes overtly, and often subliminally, instead of performing their job to report and analyze.