Reporters at War: Dying for the Story

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James Miller (18/12/1968 - 02/05/2003) and Namir Noor-Eldeen (01/09/1984 - 12/07/2007) payed the ultimate price, each of them were shot dead while endeavouring to document the events of armed conflict as members of the media. Miller was a successful cameraman and film director with previous experience filming in areas of conflict, he was working on a documentary depicting the lives of various children living in the war-torn region of Rafah, Gaza. He was shot in the neck, dying almost instantly on the last night of filming by an Israeli soldier. Noor-Eldeen was a young Iraqi-born photojournalist. He was trained and employed by Reuters news agency “as part of a strategy to employ photojournalists with strong local knowledge and access to areas considered too dangerous for Western photographers to work in”1. He and the group he was with were shot at by American soldiers flying above Bagdhad in a helicopter and he died instantly. The deaths of these two men are just two examples of members of the media losing their lives while covering events in dangerous areas. As at May 12 this year there have been 27 reported deaths of journalists in different regions of conflict in the world2. The media and the role of the media in such situations raises many questions and controversies. On one hand, the media bring vital information to the attention of the international public and are an important tool in the documentation of war. There is a need for un-biased reporting of these events in order to prevent propaganda, cover-ups and to justify the need for war and the need for justice. In the case of these two deaths however, nobody has yet been held accountable, even with the United Nations pleading governments “to do all they can to prevent ... ... middle of paper ... ...he death of Miller is the context of the footage. Released by Wikileaks the clip shows a group of men being fired at from above, they appear to be talking to each other, posing no threat to the helicopter above, even seemingly unaware of its presence. The US military claim that the cameras with telephoto lenses attached held by Noor-Eldeen and his associates were mistaken for Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG’s) and machine guns. American journalist David Finkel, who was embedded with the battalion in question for 8 months, says of the clip "You're seeing an edited version of the video. The full video runs much longer. And it doesn't have the benefit of hindsight”9. He goes on to explain that the area this event occurred was in the midst of a large clearing operation as it is where US soldiers had been getting “shot at, injured, and killed with increasing frequency”10.

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