Posted on 02/04/2011 5:50:08 PM PST by Kaslin
CAIRO, Egypt – It was Wednesday afternoon. We were covering the clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters near Tahrir or Liberation Square in Cairo.
A short time after we started our shooting, cameraman Olaf Wiig was threatened by a small group of pro-Mubarak thugs.
We ducked down an alley. It turned out to be a dead end, so we dashed into a nearby building.
At first it was a perfect vantage point to cover the street battle. Then it quickly turned into a battle station for the pro-government side.
Olaf, producer Ibrahim Hezbroun, a Canadian journalist, and myself hunkered down in an apartment in the back of the top floor.
The owner of the apartment, first of many kind Egyptians to help us, offered us shelter.
Just outside the door, the goons were breaking up parts of the hallway’s marble to throw off the roof. As night fell, rocks turned to Molotov cocktails. Gas bombs were being lit, also to be thrown off the roof. We could see the silhouettes of the thugs and their projectiles on the apartment’s glass door.
They did not know we were there.
They’d already ransacked a small hotel on the other half of the floor, terrorizing the people there in a search of “traitors.” We anticipated they could knock down our door, and we would be next.
Still we waited for a turn in events. The anti-government protesters started targeted the building. When a Molotov cocktail smashed through the window of the room we were in, spreading gas over the floor, we decided that was it. We weren’t going to go up in flames. We were going to make a run for it. We rushed down the stairs and out on the street.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yeah and the real unemployment number isn’t 9%...
bttt
‘At first it was a perfect vantage point to cover the street battle’—————
I don’t feel sorry for the journalists.
They clearly were there for ratings, in the middle of all that violence, and then cry and whine about the violence, and still trying to get ratings from it.
We got big problems here in the U.S. too, and reading your hyped up stories isn’t one of em.
Notice he doesn’t dare report that Obama knew of the trouble for Egypt all along.
They stopped counting
I don’t feel sorry for them either. What the heck are they doing there in the middle of a riot that’s lasted for ten days? And what the heck are they expecting from a mob besides chaos? Duh! And, I believe they are being perceived as backing the rioters and not the government, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the law-abiding, wage-earning citizens are wanting the order that Mubarak provided against this sort of thing.
Who wants the mob to win? What if they had let the rioters in Los Angeles win? Those things are total chaos, total anarchy. It is dangerous and stupid to let those things go.
Greg Palkot is a top notch reporter unlike Anderson Cooper
They need to send in the Hells Angels for security.
You don't have to like them, but they perform a service in times like this.
You need to read some of the stories in the new iPad paper, the Daily. You would have a greater respect for the reporters over there.
Good freaking grief....that’s their JOB!!! That’s like saying that a fireman shouldn’t go into a burning building!! Come on.
Fox and Brett Baird reported just now that Greg and Olaf are safe in a London hospital. Thank goodness!!
Why would an american reporter go except for his ratings?
A local reprter if cornered could start throwing rocks too and be treated like a fellow rioter.
And the networks have cut back their foreign news budgets- the managers should know they no longer have the ‘pull’ to insure their team’s safety.
Stupid.
I am watching it
Good program. Wonder if they will carry Sarah’s speech?
And then someone directed the violence at them and we supposed to feel sympathy for them? What they said was "We were filming people getting hurt and/or killed and then they tried to get US, oh the horror, poor us. But we're very tough and decided to run for it and hopefully live to get ratings."
If you can't stand the heat, git' out of th microwave.
Isn’t reporting what reporters do? I don’t know if you remember when during the Iraq war the reporters who were embedded with the troops reporting from the battle zone while some so-called “reporters” reported their news that was fed to them from their hotel rooms?
Probably on a different program
But these guys have no cover. Not from their own contacts or their bureau’s contacts.
That’s how these stories used to be reported.
Times have changed. Bureaus have gone to local talent and can’t change the formula when ‘big’ events happen just to get an american face in the shot.
“I don’t feel sorry for the journalists.”
I do. That’s how we know what’s going on.
I remember the great Ernie Pyle. We need the journalists.
Yes, we do need the journalists. Too bad none are in the US. That being said, these guys and gals (w/the exception of Katie C. (don’t know what she is)) know EXACTLY what they’re in for; that’s why they stay. Hey Greg (and Greta), can’t stand the heat; get the he!! out of the kitchen! Otherwise, pull up your big boy panties and get on with it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.