Lecture: Andrew Marshall
Inevitably, it's the plane's gut-jolting corkscrew descent that makes Andrew Marshall remember where he is. "The times I find the hardest are flying back into Baghdad," he said. Marshall, a correspondent in Iraq for Reuters, forgets how extreme things are in Baghdad when he's not there. "The tough thing is going back," he said, to a group of New York University journalism students visiting the Reuter's building in Times Square on October 25, 2004.
"Probably my best day as a journalist was in May 2002, when I was in Rangoon, [covering] the release of Aung San Suu Kyi [after] years of house arrest. Burma is a fascinating country and Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the most impressive people I have ever met," Marshall recalled, in an e-mail interview.
Another unforgettable story, for Marshall, was the bloodshed in East Timor in 1999. It "was a bitterly sad story," the reporter recalled. He arrived soon after the violence that ensued when "the country became independent after decades of brutal occupation by Indonesia. "Nonetheless," said Marshall, in an e-mail, "it was a very uplifting time" . Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao, probably one of the world’s coolest heads of state, in Marshall's opinion, returned from prison in Indonesia and after years of house arrest in Jakarta, visited a rebel camp high in the Timorese mountains to meet all the guerrilla fighters he had led until his arrest. These fighters had resisted an Indonesian military onslaught for years and they were battle-hardened and grizzled, but they all wept as they embraced each other and celebrated their freedom, by years of constant military and political resistance. "Being there was unforgettable and it was one of the best and most moving days of my life," said Marshall.
"[We are] used to swimming in the ocean," said Marshall, of the growing restrictions on Western journalists operating in Iraq. "Now we're swimming in a fish bowl."
Marshall, 33, joined Reuters in 1994 and has worked at the wire service's Baghdad bureau since August, 2003. "It's high pressure, a lot of stress, but it is a lot of fun," he said—an oddly lighthearted adjective for what is all too often a deadly job. Since the start of the war, in March 2003, 46 reporters have been killed and many European countries have packed up and left the war-torn country. "A lot of TV networks and newspapers pulled their people out of Baghdad last year when security became progressively worse," said Marshall, via e-mail. This is one of the reasons why Reuters needs to be there, since so many news outlets rely on them for news, he believes. "Many sent people back in, ahead of the elections, and last month a French journalist and Italian journalist were kidnapped in Baghdad, showing just how dangerous this place is," he noted.
The last six weeks have been tough, admitted Marshall. "Things have become more restrictive," he said. "We rely more and more on the Iraqis." The safety-related restrictions can make a reporter feel stir-crazy, he implied. He and the other Reuters staffers "used to be swimming in the ocean," so to speak, but "now we're in a fish bowl." Often, he has to tell his staff to come back from the field, because conditions are too dangerous. "Safety comes before the story every time," he said.
Since the start of the war, several Reuters journalists have died. A Ukrainian cameraman, Taras Protsyuk, was killed in April 2004 when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. Several Reuters journalists were badly wounded, and Jose Couso, a Spanish cameraman for the Tele5 channel.
In August, 2003, a Palestinian Reuters cameraman, Mazen Dana, was fatally shot by a U.S. soldier outside Abu Ghraib prison. An investigation concluded that the American mistook Mazen's camera for a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher. Dhia Najim, an Iraqi freelance cameraman, was shot dead in Ramadi in November, 2004. Reuters is still waiting for the results of the U.S. military inquiry; as this is written, they remain unsure whether he was killed by U.S. marines or Iraqi insurgents.
"We have also had journalists wounded in several incidents, in some cases by insurgents and in some cases by U.S. troops," said Marshall, by e-mail. "We have had journalists abducted by insurgents, and we have had journalists detained and abused by U.S. troops. All were eventually released."
As conditions for foreign reporters worsen, Reuters relies increasingly on Iraqis to cover stories in parts of the country that are no-go zones for Western journalists. The agency employs six Iraqi photographers, four reporters, and 45 to 50 stringers. "They're classed as stringers but they're full-time," he said. "They work everyday," putting in long hours. "They've become our ears and our eyes," noted Marshall.
Reporting U.S. operations and the everyday horrors of the ongoing insurgency "has been very challenging," said Marshall. The situation has made him and his fellow Reuters journalists "return to the basics of journalism." For instance, he said, "you can't just pick up the phone." Typically, reporters on the ground in Iraq have communicated by satellite phone; mobile phones are only now beginning to work. In most cases, they send information over a livewire (broadcast-journalism jargon for transmitting instantaneously, as events occur, rather than recording a story for future broadcast), but it takes one hour to send three minutes of usable footage." To compound life's difficulties, Marshall confessed, he's handicapped by the fact that he does not speak Arabic.
To make matters worse, there's the static crackle of fear that's always in the air. Frequently, Marshall and his crew are woken in the middle of the night by bombs exploding nearby. They've gotten so used to it that they just roll over and go back to sleep.
In telling such war stories, Marshall isn't trying to burnish a war reporter's macho image. "[Reporting from Iraq] is something I have chosen to do," he said, offhandedly. He means it literally: Reuters' Baghdad bureau is staffed exclusively by volunteers, since the agency has a policy that no one has to work in a war zone if they don't want to.
Reuters's finest hour, suggested Marshall, was when the wire service broke the story of the capture of Saddam Hussein. Ironically, Marshall himself received the news from his mother. He was on a plane when Hussein was captured, and only found out about it from a voice message sent by his mom. "Not the way I expected to hear the news," he said.
SOURCES
- February 9, 2004 article [http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7580996] by Marshall, Gunmen kill Iraqi Journalist, Government Official
- January 30, 2004 article [http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7472684] by Marshall, Streets barricaded as Iraqis await vote