TheWMURChannel.com
ABC News Anchor, Cameraman Injured In Iraq
POSTED: 8:56 am EST January 29, 2006UPDATED: 8:59 am EST January 29, 2006
NEW YORK -- ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured Sunday in an explosion while reporting from Iraq, the network said Sunday.Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were hit by an improvised explosive device near Taji, Iraq, and were in serious condition at a U.S. military hospital, ABC News President David Westin said.
The two were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling with an Iraqi Army unit.
The U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad confirmed that the ABC News team was involved in an attack but declined to provide further details to The Associated Press. An official military statement was expected to be issued later Sunday.
Woodruff was named co-anchor of ABC News' "World News Tonight" with Elizbeth Vargas this month after the death of Peter Jennings. In an unusual approach to evening news shows, one of the two co-anchors typically reports from the studio in New York while the other reports from the field, as Woodruff was doing in Iraq.
Woodruff grew up in Michigan and became a corporate lawyer in New York. He took a leave of absence to teach at a school in China, helped CBS News during the Tiananmen Square uprising and became hooked on journalism.
"When I realized there was a job that existed in this world where I could be in the middle of huge world events and actually get paid for it, it was an epiphany for me," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
He has covered the Justice Department and reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Belgrade and Kosovo.
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
