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Murphy Martin Commentary
March 2, 2006

 "Reporter's Rough Roads"

Keeping the world informed is much more difficult in 2006 than it was in the 1960's when we began at ABC Radio and Television networks. Yes we got roughed up a bit from time to time covering demonstrations, anti-marches for various causes, and those reporters in Vietnam were on much safer ground than those covering the wars in the Middle East.

No it was not fun dodging Molotov-cocktails tossed from tops of buildings onto the sidewalks below in Harlem where we worked with our camera-crews trying to piece together another chapter of the civil-rights struggles of those days. Hiding beneath a fire-truck in Newark while a sniper ten-floors up kept bouncing shots off the pavement all around that protective fire-engine. Even in the rioting streets of Birmingham; or,shaking off the physical threats from the Klan in St. Augustine and all through the South--those things pale by today's menacing fears reporter's face in Iraq.

The Iraq war has brought a new term into use by journalists--EMBEDDED! More reporters have been "embedded" with fighting forces in this war than ever before. As a result, reporters assume many of the same risks as those they are covering. It's one of the hazards of the job, and just as we did in earlier days of television journalism, they try not to be consumed with the risks and strive to be careful. These are oftentimes hard to equate.

ABC-TV World News Tonight co-anchor Bob Woodruff is still hospitalized in Bethesda Hospital, being treated for critical head and facial wounds he suffered when he and his camera-man Doug Vogt were struck in January while they were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division. They were in the lead vehicle of the combined Iraqi and Coalition Forces operation when an improvised explosive device went off, followed by small arms fire. Woodruff and Vogt were first taken to Germany for treatment and then were transferred to Bethesda. Vogt was released last week and is now back in Paris but, neither hospital nor network news officials have mentioned a recovery time frame for Woodruff.

Embedding seemingly is a matter of necessity for reporters in war zones. Even that cannot insure their safety but it certainly increases their safety from insurgent attacks and the possibility of being kidnapped or murdered. Being embedded provides unprecedented access to war zones and when there are no defined lines of demarcation, being embedded is even more important.

Opening the world's eyes to the reality of war as never seen before comes at a heavy price.

Throughout the Vietnam War 69 journalists were killed. The total killed during Ernie Pyle's WWII days was 62. CBS News reports 61-reporters from throughout the world have lost their lives in the Middle East---and the roads get rougher!

Among those who lost their life in Iraq was NBC Correspondent David Bloom who died in April of 2003 while suffering a blood clot while traveling south of Baghdad. David Bloom was a close friend of Bob Woodruff. When Woodruff was wounded in January, Bloom's widow flew to Germany with Woodruff's wife to be with the ABC anchorman and accompany him back to America.

Woodruff became Co-Anchor of World News Tonight early this year after the death of Peter Jennings who anchored the program for more than twenty-years.

Woodruff, who is 44 years old, grew up in Michigan and is the father of four including 5-year old twins. He was a corporate lawyer before taking a leave of absence to teach at a school in China. During that time he helped CBS News with their coverage of the Tiananmen Square uprising and became enamored with television news.

At ABC, Woodruff covered the Justice Department and reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Belgrade and Kosovo before sliding into the Co-Anchor slot on World News Tonight.

The most visible well-known names in news---primarily television--names like Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, Koppel, Rivera, and all network field reporters, men and women, have traveled the embedded route while gathering the first-hand story of war in Iraq. They were able to dodge the suicide bombers. But they knew each day they moved on the story could be their last.

Former ABC Correspondent Jim Wooten said: "In many wars they are organized, troops on one side or the other. In Iraq a reporter knows nothing of that--no front, no movement of troops in one direction. Insurgents pop up, they kill, they maim, they loot, and they disappear."

Even the most experienced reporters have a difficult time measuring the risks in such a volatile environment.

Time Magazine reporter Michael Weiskopf lost a hand in a grenade attack while traveling in a military Humvee in 2003. "You jump in the crosshairs every time you get into a Humvee, and you have to play the odds. Every time you get into it, the odds of getting hurt increase."

Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt learned how fast those odds can increase first hand! They know how rough a reporter's road to a story can really be today!!

Murphy Martin

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