Prepping for War


October 11, 2002


BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Even before the House and Senate authorized President Bush to wage war on Iraq, the media were prepping for battle. It's a costly campaign, literally, for broadcasters whose budgets were already strained by coverage of the war on terror. TV Guide's Max Robins recently checked in on the networks.

MAX ROBINS: They all say they will have the resources, that their corporate bosses are committed to it and committing to them, really giving comprehensive coverage. Of course you, you hear reports now that, that CNN and ABC News are talking about [LAUGHS] joining forces. I mean I had one person inside CNN tell me that they had put aside about 35, 36 million dollars as, as basically a - an Iraqi war fund if you will, and that's for all sorts of things - satellite uplinks - getting people in and out of a tough region - and making sure they have as much protection as they possibly can. This is the first time I've heard where networks are issuing biological suits. That's a new one on me. I mean that goes way beyond flak jackets and metal helmets.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Max Robins writes The Robins Report for TV Guide. Chris Cramer, the president of CNN's International Networks joins us now on the line from Slovenia. Hello!

CHRIS CRAMER: Hi there.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So we just heard that the networks are arming their reporters with special suits and medicines and maps to make covering a future war in Iraq a little safer. Is that true for CNN? How are you preparing your team?

CHRIS CRAMER: Well we have in the last few weeks, in fact in the last few months, introduced a very stringent new policy at CNN which is we--require all of our staff who are likely to go hostile areas to have been trained. And we have contracts with trainers who put our staff through their paces. This can range from battlefield first aid all the way through to knowing how to conduct themselves in a war zone; knowing what risks are appropriate. Listen -- you know this is an inherently risky profession. You know, we don't force our people to go to these parts of the world. They're, they're all volunteers. But what we do is dangerous!

BROOKE GLADSTONE:The business is inherently dangerous, but you've called the past year "probably the worst 12 months for the profession." Why was this year worse?

CHRIS CRAMER: Journalists whether we like it or not are now considered as legitimate targets for many groups around the world. We've seen, you know, 8 of our colleagues die in Afghanistan in one single week; you know, more than the U.S. armed forces. We've seen the horr-- you know horrific kidnap-mutilation-murder on camera of Danny Pearl from the Wall Street Journal. Last week we saw a colleague from the Frontline organization in Britain killed in Chechnya. So not ever before have we seen this sort of catalogue of misery ranged against our profession.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:And I know you were quoted in The Guardian saying that some broadcasters and newspapers were putting costs before lives. What did you mean by that?

CHRIS CRAMER: What I meant by that was that journalists work in inherently unsafe areas. How do news bosses cope with that? And the answer is they have to put their hands in their pocket. They have to train and equip their staff to operate in these areas, and the notion that somehow, you know, safety is something which is a very private issue to be determined on the ground is very dangerous and very old thinking. We have a huge responsibility for the people and to the people who work for us. You know we've got to release our employees from that menacing hand of pressure which I've worked under in, in past years -- not recently -- but in past years, where you didn't ever want to admit that you were scared. You didn't ever want to admit that you didn't want to take an assignment because you thought somehow that might damage your career path.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Now CNN made a considerable mark in covering the last war against Saddam, but this time around you'll have competition, notable among them the other 24 hour news channels and Al-Jazeera. In fact, a news chief at Al-Jazeera said: Ah-ha! This time CNN won't be the exclusive source of news. Do you think that that kind of pressure will influence what you do?

CHRIS CRAMER: I think it might, were it not for the fact that, you know, CNN has made a judgment and it's made it in the last few years that we put our staff before the story; that actually quite simply no story is worth a life; that no sequence of video is worth someone getting shot at for; that actually understands that sometimes we will have to reach out to you and overrule your instincts about covering the story, and that competition must not put you in a position where you have to drive down that road that day -- you have to take that particular route that afternoon. There's always tomorrow. There's always next week. That's not a, a level of pressure that we are prepared to put you under. I wish that it were so of all news organizations, but it sadly isn't! There are many broadcasters and many newspapers who wish that this problem would just go away. But it won't.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well Chris, I hope you'll let us call you over the next weeks and months as things proceed so you can keep us up to date.

CHRIS CRAMER: Of course.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Thank you very much.

CHRIS CRAMER: Thank you very much indeed.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Chris Cramer is the president of CNN's International Networks and he joined us on the line from Slovenia.