Media watchdog says concerned CNN had armed guard

Reuters | 4/13/03

[kattracks]

Media watchdog says concerned CNN had armed guard

PARIS, April 13 (Reuters) - A media watchdog expressed concern on Sunday that a CNN team reporting from Iraq was travelling with an armed guard, saying it set a "dangerous precedent" that could imperil other journalists.

Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) made the comments after an incident in the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit in which a security guard hired by CNN fired his machinegun at a checkpoint when the CNN convoy came under gunfire.

"This behaviour creates a dangerous precedent that could imperil all other reporters covering this conflict and others in the future," Robert Menard, RSF secretary general, said in a statement.

"There is a real risk that belligerents will believe all press vehicles are armed," he said, adding that the use of armed private security guards only increased the confusion between reporters and combatants in the conflict.

Media organisations have employed armed guards to protect premises in particularly dangerous places.

But a spokesman for the Paris-based media watchdog said it was unprecedented for journalists to travel with armed guards in conflict zones.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time press vehicles have travelled with armed security guards. It did not happen in the Balkans and it didn't occur in the first Gulf War," RSF spokesman Jean-Francois Julliard said.

"CNN appears to be going too far. This could come back to haunt them and other journalists. Journalists should not be travelling around with armed guards," he added.

Matthew Firman, a CNN spokesman in the U.S. city of Atlanta, said the team of reporters had come under small arms and automatic weapons fire from "relatively close range" either on the way in or out of Tikrit.

He said an Iraqi Kurd, hired as a security guard, had opened fire in response and been lightly wounded in the exchange. No one else was hurt.

Pointing to an earlier CNN report of an alleged assassination plot by Iraqi agents against its reporters in the north, Firman said locals had been hired in Kurdish-controlled Iraq to protect the station's journalists.

"Presumably we hire them to protect us, so if firing their weapon is required to protect themselves and our team, then that is appropriate," he said, in response to questions about CNN's policy of hiring armed guards.

"We only put our teams in situations in which we can do our best to ensure their safety. If it means hiring armed guards or security consultants we will do that. The security of our team is paramount," Firman said.

04/13/03 12:41 ET

[DeuceTraveler]

"CNN appears to be going too far."

Wow. How many times has this been said?

[LurkedLongEnough]

Sean Penn should become a CNN embed.

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[Grampa Dave]

If they get in the way of our forces or endanger them, our local commanders need to take these bastards out like any other enemy force.

I'm sure that the Free Iraqis and Kurds would like to have a few CNN trophies hang around their houses. CNN being in bed with Saddam for over a decade has cost the lives of a lot of innocent Iraqis and Kurds.

[RippleFire]

BUMP

[robertpaulsen]

"To our knowledge, this is the first time press vehicles have travelled with armed security guards."

For some reason this reminds me of the Rosie O'Donnell bodyguard controversy. Especially given that it's CNN doing it.

There's a, "Guns are bad -- but give me one to protect myself" feel to it.

[ChadGore]

In future battles, will CNN bring their own shoulder fired anti tank weapons to fire at US troops? . . . to bring you the "inside story" of what dead americans smeared across the inside of a tank look like?

After all, this is the same CNN that spent MILLIONS to produce Peter Arnetts filth about our troops useing bio weapons, and later had to retract it.

This is the same CNN who willingly did not report the story of "Chiraqs Iraq" torturing one of his it's own cameramen leaving him permently disfigured even to this day, and later had to admit the truth.

Is this the same CNN that will, if this behaviour continues, plant it's own CNN anti-tank mine just in front of the Palistein hotel, to get just the right lighting as their blow-dried poodle does their standup in front of the burning hulk of an Abrams . . . Cwistin Wamo-poor xclaiming "this attack sends a clear message that the people still support saddom" ????

Well, maybe I'm reading to much into this.

[Drango]

NO BLOOD FOR RATINGS

[Benrand]

Bob FrankenSimon...those two guys come off as completely psychotic. Just nuts.

[sargon]

Hey, I saw that incident live, and that armed guard may very well have saved their lives, or at least their freedom.

Anybody is entitiled to defend themselves and use security forces when warranted (such as in an active War zone.)

[weegee]

Sod the journalists, this makes it dangerous for American troops what with journalists ticking off the locals by shooting at checkpoints and firing blindly into villages.

CNN GUILTY OF RATINGS WARCRIMES

[ChadGore]

Mind if I steal your tagline ?

[John H K]

SOUTH OF PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA, July 12, 2004:

(AP) A CNN camera crew came under heavy fire from Fox News Channel armored vehicles today.

The CNN crew was attempting to enter Pyongyang to film choice footage of liberated North Koreans destroying statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, but was repulsed by elite forces of the Leventhal Battalion.

CNN is expected to call in airstrikes from A-10s belonging to network ally ABC.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

I am torn on this one- on the one hand, I am no fan of CNN, and I never watch them if I can possibly get another news source. On the other hand, even journalists have a right to self-defense. And you have to admit that driving into the outskirts of TIKRIT was a pretty gutsy thing to do.

I guess, if had been in Sadler's place, I probably would have applied my old rule concerning bars and roadhouses- "If that place is too dangerous to go into without a gun, I'll just stay out!"

[jimbo123]

I wonder what the gun control lefties at the Coverup News Network think about this?

[weegee]

Feel free to use any of the phrases. My tag line includes my own "No Blood For Ratings" retort to the lefist media (now that their game is evident) and someone elses' wording of the scandal at CNN.

It would be good to be at public protest events with these CNN phrases (although a crafty editor might crop a shot so it just reads ... "NO BLOOD FOR...").

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

ROTFLMAO! And it's not even impossible that this could happen...

[hgro]

CNN should not have been there in the first place. These weinies continue to slobber their lies - but their audience is contracting apace.

[CyberAnt]

I'm wondering if this "going too far" will push them over the cliff ...??

They appear to be expressing all the traits of an organization so enamored with itself, it cannot see that it's totally out of control.

A free press is important - but with a free press, comes responsibility. Evidently, CNN no longer meets that test.