Paying the Price for News
The great war photographer, Robert Capa, once said, “If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough.”
Capa always went close, so close he ended up in pieces all over Vietnam's Red River delta after stepping on a land mine.
We know this because Capa kept snapping away, right up until the explosion.
Every year, hundreds of journalists are killed covering wars, most in their own countries where they fight government and corruption to publish the truth.
Last week in Turkey, thousands gathered to honour journalist Ugur Mumcu, killed while investigating suspected links between drug traffickers, right-wing terrorists and the government. He must have been on to something.
Others die far from home, covering other people's wars like Myles Tiemey of the Associated Press did this month in Sierra Leone, during a firefight that also left Canadian journalist Ian Stewart with a bullet in the head.
Every 10 days, somewhere in the world, a journalist is killed.
Even more frequently, journalists are imprisoned, tortured or “disappeared.”
It's not all dangerous work. Some foreign correspondents don fatigues and venture no farther than behind the palms in the hotel bars where they exchange war stories.
But photographers can't do that. As Capa said, “If there's no picture, there's no story.”
It's a special breed that risks life and limb to get the picture worth a thousand stories. The right image, perfectly captured, can stop wars or start them, save lives, change the world.
Do all war correspondents start with such high-minded intentions? Or are they just adrenalin junkies, folks who must flirt with death in order to feel alive?
Says CNN's Christiane Amanpour, “There are certain people who have to do a certain thing.”
Dan Eldon was one of those people.
Cocky, charming and so-very-talented, he died in 1993, along with fellow Reuters correspondents Hos Maina and Anthony Macharia and AP's Hansi Krauss, all stoned or beaten to death by a mob in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu.
His life and death is recounted by his kid sister, Amy, in the astonishing Dying To Tell The Story, a gripping two-hour documentary.
Eldon, a dual British-American citizen, was only 22, a brilliant talent who left behind not only his eloquent photos of misery and brutality, but 17 dazzling journals brimming with his observations, drawings and odes to his beloved Land Rover, Deziree. There are also miles of videotape of him, always clowning, seducing friend and foe.
“A photographer in danger zones,” he observed, “needs to be a detective, a con man and a master of escape.”
On the day Eldon was supposed to leave Somalia, his bags packed, an American attack helicopter blasted the house of a government official, killing and wounding hundreds.
Eldon couldn't resist the action, that chance for one last shot. When a convoy of journalists set out for the house, he jumped in only to find himself in the middle of outraged citizens out for revenge.
Dying To Tell The Story travels the world to track down the details of his death, pried from war correspondents such as Amanpour, Des Wright, who talks of the smell of death, Carlos Mavrolean, who admits to feeling like a vulture when he zooms in on starvation and suffering, and Dan McCullin, a seasoned vet who fell apart after a Beirut bombing and now paints unsettling Gothic landscapes in England.
Written and directed by Kyra Thompson and executive produced by Dan's mother, Kathy Eldon, Dying To Tell The Story is loaded with horrific images from the hellish places that these and others have covered.
When videographer Mohamed Shaffi recalls filming napalmed children in Eritrea, he cries. Yet others have hunted, haunted looks when they speak. Others still find a way to be as unfeeling as, well, a wide-angle lens.
The one thing they all mention – something all war correspondents remark on when you ask them about their work – is how they can get out.
Whether it's Bosnia or Beirut, when your assignment is over, you're out of there. For the people you cover, however, there's no escape.
But, every once in a while, the correspondents are trapped, too.
Dan Eldon was cornered, right where he wanted to be – and the world is a sadder, more dangerous place for all the work he was not able to complete.
He got in close all right, and Dying To Tell The Story leaves you feeling very close to him.
Antonia Zerbisias. The Sunday Times. 2001 № 4
Language focus
1. Find words or phrases in the text that have a similar meaning to the following:
– to go on filming or making photos;
– to make a report (about something);
– to unearth something;
– a man with adventure-loving nature;
– expressive, significant photos;
– to magnify, enlarge something;
– infernal, awful places;
– a worried look;
– to be snared (by somebody).
2. Match the verbs with the nouns to make phrases:
| to risk | suffering |
| to cover | death |
| to flirt | life and limb |
| to brim (with) | wars |
| to zoom in (on) | observations |
Speech activities