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feature
Is your press card bullet-proof?
by Liezel de Lange
and Julie Versfeld
To many people journalism seems like a dangerous career. Journalists take risks to get the news. But is your story really worth your life?
"I showed my press card but I was pushed to the ground by several plainclothes KGB men who dragged me through the crowd and threw me onto the bus, where I was kept under guard by armed security men. A policeman ground his heal on my passport before throwing it in after me" - Peter Arnett while on assignment for CNN in Moscow.
Hollywood and paperbacks have done for journalism what L.A. Law did for the law profession. The image of journalists going into the battlefield, bullets flying around their heads, always getting their story, always coming out unscathed, was born. This is not the case in the real world. During 1993, 115 journalists were attacked, harassed or killed in South Africa.
To name but a few: in 1993, Johan de Waal, Beeld reporter, was shot in both legs while covering a story in Katlehong. AWB supporters viciously assaulted Mike Proctor-Sims outside an ANC meeting in Port Elizabeth. Herbert Mabuza, Sunday Times photographer, was caught in the crossfire when police opened fire on protesting taxi drivers in Johannesburg, and was shot in the arm. SABC journalist, Calvin Thusago, bled to death after being attacked by about 30 youths in Katlehong. During 1994, acclaimed South African photographer, Ken Oosterbroek, was killed in the East Rand while on assignment. These are just a few examples of what journalists had to endure in the past.
According to journalists, the situation in South Africa has become less volatile and less dangerous. "These days being a tourist in South Africa is more unsafe than being a journalist" says the Citizen’s news editor Ken Slade. Mail & Guardian news editor, Peta Thornicroft, describes South Africa as a "cushy number" in comparison to areas such as Angola, Mozambique and Bosnia.
At least in South Africa you can leave a dangerous area and go home to a warm meal and comfortable bed. Journalists in Angola or Mozambique did not know where they would find supper and ran the risk of being shot at any time.
Not being in a war zone does not lessen the impact of witnessing brutal and undiscriminating killing – even dodging some bullets yourself. For Lulama Luti, reporter for the Sowetan, it was too much. She was with the police when they discovered corpses in Tokoza. Having watched them load the bodies in the van, Luti went back to the office and wrote her story. Later that night she "started crying out of the blue." After covering various stories in the East Rand Townships this was her last. She realised, "journalists watch people dying and not all of them want to deal with it."
While reporting on the situation in the townships, Luti was "caught in the crossfire" when pandemonium broke out in Katlehong after a speech by Winnie Mandela. She was wearing a red armband, issued by SAUJ (South African Union of Journalists) and MWUSA (Media Workers Union of South Africa), to make journalists easily identifiable in a crowd. Caught in a shack that came under police fire, Luti felt, "I wanted to go out because I felt the armband would protect me." But she realised she was as vulnerable as anyone else.
South African photographer, Kevin Carter documented the violence and the tragedy during the Apartheid era. In 1984 he shot his first Time cover and ten years later he was awarded a Pullitzer Prize for a photograph of a vulture awaiting the death of a young Sudanese girl. After taking the photograph he "sat under a tree and cried and chain-smoked." Two months later he committed suicide.
Carter could not distance himself from all he witnessed and he was deeply troubled by the death of his best friend and colleague, Ken Oosterbroek. According to the Columbia Journalism Review his suicide note read, "I am haunted by the vivid memories of killing and corpses and anger and pain... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen."
Thornicroft was in Boipatong in 1992. The police opened fire and "I ducked and the guy next to me ducked. He died and I didn’t." A press card does not protect you either physically or emotionally. Journalists are vulnerable. SAUJ realised this and in 1993 they published, Surviving the Story, A safety manual for journalists.
In the safety manual they stress "It’s your life. You have the right to refuse an assignment you consider too dangerous. If you think things are too hot, don’t go. You cannot be fired for refusing a job which puts your life at risk." But journalists still go.
The Sowetan has a policy that journalists are not forced to do stories, especially if their lives are threatened. According to Luti, "When the news editor said they need someone to cover a story in a volatile area, the journalists didn’t jump up and beg to do it." But someone had to do it and each one took their turn. "This type of work takes its toll on all."
Slade sees going into dangerous areas as part of the job. You do not only have a responsibility towards yourself but also to your readers: "you have to get back to the news office and report, you can’t do that if you are dead." Slade believes journalists cannot dictate the events around them, but "no story is worth your life."
Since Thornicroft has been news editor at the Mail & Guardian none of the journalists have turned down assignments in dangerous areas. "It is part of the job." When she was asked to go to Boipatong she did not think about the danger. There need to be journalists who are willing to cover potentially hazardous incidents, otherwise we could be faced with news blackouts. If the police became the only source of information it would be an ominous reminder of the 80s. A true democracy needs transparency in all aspects of society. Otherwise, in the words of the Roman poet Juvenal, "who will guard the guardians."
Unfortunately journalists in the Western Cape have recently come under fire again. On the night of the lynching of Hard Livings gang leader, Rashaad Staggie, one journalist was shot and three photographers injured. Threats against photographers’ lives have not been confined to that night. Cape Times photographer, Benny Gool, feared for his life and kept a low profile after his pictures of Rashaad’s death were published all over the country.
Pagad threatened the press after the revenge killing of one of their members. A foreign reporter told the Mail & Guardian "photographers and cameramen seem to have the blame laid at their feet as people assume it is solely owing to their material that Ryklief was killed." It seems as though Pagad is focusing their attention on journalists because they see them as assisting the police and gangsters in identifying their members.
The situation was aggravated by the police’s demands for journalists to hand over all their photographs and information. Chairman of the Freedom of Expression Institute, Raymond Louw, told the Mail & Guardian, "hopefully the community will respect journalists as observers doing their professional jobs."
For some journalists covering violent situations is not just part of the job, it is the job. After covering the Vietnam War, Arnett, went to work for Associated Press, thinking he would make it a "lifetime career." But he soon found he "wanted to be in the hot spots", and CNN could provide. "I told CNN I was available for anything, anywhere, and that I preferred action, that I wanted to cover the little wars spreading across the globe."
To Alistair Lyne, South African cameraman for Associated Press TV, going to Monrovia was "a big privilege." As a cameraman there is no by-line, no face on the television, no fame as for Arnett, but he has worked in Burundi five times, and will be going to Sierra Leone in July. He does not describe himself as an adrenaline junkie but "you have to keep your blood flowing somehow and racing cars is too expensive. This is good, I wouldn’t do anything else."
Unlike Bosnia, where journalists were targeted, there are places where being a journalist makes you less vulnerable than other people. According to Lyne, his camera offered a kind of defence in Liberia. As a member of the press, you would only be shot at if mistaken for the enemy, or if you were caught in the crossfire.
In Burundi, filming certain events "could cost you your life." This is where Lyne draws the line between getting a story and being irresponsible. Journalists feel a responsibility towards their readers and at times taking risks is part of the job. Some take more risks than others. This attitude is summed up by CNN video editor, Tracy Flemming who said to Arnett, "They say you’re bullet-proof."
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