Thursday, December 3, 2015

What Makes A War Reporter

Lara Logan, Council on Foreign Relations

Lloyd Grove, Daily Beast: Worthy, Deadly, and Selfish: What Makes a War Reporter

They want the story, but what about their safety, and their loved ones? Lara Logan, Sebastian Junger, and Matthieu Aikins reveal the life and death realities of combat journalism.
Before her most recent trip to Iraq—for a 60 Minutes feature on the pitched battle for territory between Shia militias and Sunni Islamic State fighters—CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan had a sobering conversation with her 5-year-old daughter, Lola.

“My daughter said, ‘Mommy, can I come with you?’ And I had to say, ‘No. You can’t come with me. I’m working,’” Logan recounted to a lunchtime crowd Tuesday at Manhattan’s Council on Foreign Relations.

“And she said, ‘But I want to come with you.’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s not safe for kids. There are bad guys there. It’s not safe for children,’” Logan continued during a panel on the dangers journalists regularly confront to report on the chaos of the Middle East.

WNU Editor: My father always wanted to be a war correspondent ... but he never realized his dream (no job openings in the former Soviet Union). In my case .... I have always been interested in international affairs .... but covering wars was never my forte or interest. But life is strange .... and now I edit a blog that not only covers wars and conflicts, but is read by war correspondents. Sighhh .... if my father was alive today, he would be shaking his head in wonderment.

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