March 19, 2002
“Kalb Report” Looks at Reporter Safety,
ABC Program Talks
Media Organization War Guidelines Highlighted
By Eric
Solomon
The gruesome killing of Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl and the controversy over ABC News’ “Nightline”
and David Letterman were the latest topics of “The Kalb Report:
Journalism at the Crossroads,” the fifth forum in a seven-part
series held at the National Press Club.
Moderator Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Shorenstein
Center’s Washington Office, was joined by panelists Cokie Roberts,
host of ABC News’ “This Week;” E.J. Dionne, columnist
for The Washington Post; Nick Tatro, deputy international editor
for the Associated Press; Steve Roberts, columnist and Shapiro Professor
at GW’s School of Media and Public Affairs; Peter Maer, CBS Radio
News White House correspondent; and Ann Cooper, executive director of
the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Last year, 37 reporters were killed worldwide, compared
with the worst year, 1994, when 72 were killed. The Associated Press
has lost 26 reporters in its 150-year history, prompting its very specific
guidelines for war coverage. According to Tatro, reporters work in groups
and stay in frequent contact with their managers to make the decision
of where they will travel. The AP also sends crews to a special security
course, where they study topics such as positioning at a riot and dealing
with stress in a war situation.
Pearl, 38, the Wall Street Journal’s South
Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped on Jan. 23 while researching a story
about Islamic militants in Pakistan. Almost a month later, a video containing
horrific footage of Pearl’s slaying was delivered to the US embassy.
There have been many published reports that have linked
Pearl’s killing to his religion of Judaism. Cooper and Maer both
emphasized there was no evidence linking religion to the murder.
“According to top US officials, there’s
nothing in the world that could have been done to save Daniel Pearl’s
life,” Maer says. “He was marked for execution from the get-go.
The moment they started plotting his kidnapping, for whatever reason
he was the target, he was going to be killed.”
Steve Roberts mentioned an experience when he was
not sent to cover a story in Beirut because of his Jewish faith. “When
I worked for the The New York Times, based in Athens in the aftermath
of the Yom Kippur War in the mid-70s, The New York Times made
a specific decision not to send Jewish correspondents to Beirut,”
says Roberts. “This reminds us that while you like to think that
journalists are professionals and are immune from retribution or targeting
because of their religion or nationality or ethnicity… the truth
is you do have to be careful and there is a history here.”
Later in the show Kalb asked the panel to discuss
the ABC/David Letterman story a little more then half way through the
March 4 program. The consensus of the experts was that executives today
are more interested in ratings and advertising revenue than news.
Cokie Roberts, who recently announced her upcoming
departure from the ABC public affairs show, noted more college-aged
people need to be aware of the news that surrounds them. “If you
watched television news, if you paid, or your peers paid, attention
to foreign coverage, if your peers read newspapers, it would be a tremendous
difference,” says Roberts. “I really do not know how you fix
the problem of people turning away from what you think is the right
thing you think they should be watching. You can’t tie them to
a chair and prop open their eyes and make them watch it.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
