From Baghdad to Beirut
| 16:31 UK time, Tuesday, 30 May 2006
Tonight - after a gap of 15 years - the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is reopening its bureau in Beirut. Two decades ago, the Lebanese capital was the scene of car bombs and kidnappings - all too frequently, journalists were seen as targets. Throughout the civil war, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ maintained its presence in Beirut, to bring the story to audiences in the UK and around the world.
Twenty years on, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is now alone among British broadcasters in staying on in Baghdad - despite the kidnappings and car bombs in the Iraqi capital.
Once again, journalists are targets. brings to 20 the number of journalists killed in Iraq in the first five months of 2006.
Thirty years ago, Jim Muir was one of those brave hacks venturing into Beirut. Today he's one of our regulars in Baghdad. The reason is the same; a belief that the story is too important for us to turn our back on, and that we have a responsibility to our audiences to explain the context - a context we can only reflect by being there.
I'll admit to a sense of frustation sometimes, that people like Andrew North and the other colleagues who work in Baghdad, don't always get the credit they deserve for working in the most difficult conditions imaginable.
Contrary to what some in the TV industry might have you believe, they don't "cower" inside the , chained to the roof of the bureau merely repeating copy churned out by news agencies. Every day our team in Baghdad ventures out of our fortified street on the opposite side of the river from the Green Zone - and we spend as much time talking through the logistics of doing so, as we do the editorial focus of the story.
For someone like me, the safety of our team in Baghdad (and the world's other troublespots) is the biggest single responsbility of the job. At any one time, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has three security staff based in Baghdad. Their job is to enable us to get out and get the story. They do it remarkably successfully - whether it's reporting the daily toll of casualties, or the polticians' attempts to restore order in Baghdad and beyond. We keep the situation under constant review - balancing the risk of the security situation, with our ability to tell the story.
The deaths of the CBS crew, Paul Douglas and James Brolan, are a reminder of the dangers our colleagues face every day. The injury to correspondent Kimberley Dozier comes just a few months after our friend Bob Woodruff from ABC News was also badly wounded alongside his camerman, Doug Vog, both of whom are now recovering. Everyone from the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ who goes to Baghdad is a volunteer - no-one is forced to work in Iraq. They go because they believe the story is important and needs telling to our audiences in Britain and beyond. And I'm enormously proud of them.
Comments
I am very proud of the manner in which the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ reports on world affairs. As an Englsh woman who has lived in the United States since 1970 I consider myself fortunate that I can still hear the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ via my local PBS stations in San Francisco and thereby learn what is really going on in the world without the finger of American prejudice being placed on the story.
The modern American anchor who undertakes a lightening visit to the latest 'hot spot', makes a couple of stand-up reports, then, based on this experience, becomes an instant 'expert' on a situation of which he or she hasn't any depth of knowledge or experience, leaves a lot to be desired.
Thank you ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and best wishes to all your reporters who brave danger to bring us the real story, you are greatly appreciated!