Posted on 12/12/2001 12:48:32 PM PST by dhuffman@awod.com
NEW YORK (December 12, 2001 6:15 a.m. EST) - From his position near Tora Bora, Afghanistan, Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera seemed more agitated by a question about carrying a gun than by the mortar rounds that just exploded nearby. "I refuse to address that issue," said Rivera, speaking into a satellite phone. "It's been blown way out of proportion. It makes me sound like a tabloid talk show host goes to war. It's so unfair." Yet Rivera's decision to bring a gun into a war zone where eight journalists have been killed has raised questions about whether it's a proper - or wise - thing for a reporter to do. Many reporters say that carrying a gun is risky because soldiers would be less likely to believe a claim that someone is a journalist, making them potential targets. "If the word gets out that a journalist is carrying a gun, it makes it difficult for everyone," said Peter Arnett, a former war correspondent for The Associated Press and CNN. Rivera, speaking on Fox News Channel last week, said that "if they're going to get us, it's going to be in a gunfight." But when asked specifically by an anchor whether he had a gun, he was reluctant to talk about it, finally nodding yes. He's traveling with two guards who have five guns between them, Fox spokesman Robert Zimmerman said. Rivera isn't necessarily carrying a gun in most situations, but has one readily available, he said. While filming a report last week, Rivera ducked after a sniper fired a few shots in his direction. "There are eight journalists already dead," he said. "I almost got killed last Thursday and, believe me, it wasn't because of a story in the New York Post that I was carrying a gun. This is a very dangerous place. "That makes me feel ill, that suddenly it's become an issue that I'm putting journalists at risk," he said. "That's complete bull." NBC forbids its correspondents from carrying firearms. ABC won't discuss its security arrangements. CBS and CNN said none of their personnel carries weapons, but it isn't a formal policy. Steve Bell, a telecommunications professor at Ball State University who covered Vietnam for ABC News, doubts he'd be alive today if he were carrying a gun when captured by Viet Cong soldiers in Cambodia in 1970. He sat in a car while his Vietnamese co-workers convinced the soldiers that Bell was a journalist, not a CIA agent. "If I had been carrying a weapon, I doubt if that argument would have gone over well," Bell said. Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, who covered World War II for United Press International, said all journalists he knew then adhered to Geneva Convention rules that they should not carry weapons. Novelist Ernest Hemingway, who covered World War II as a reporter, angered fellow journalists in August 1944 when he joined a band of French resistance fighters. They were concerned about him blurring lines between journalists and soldiers. Hemingway kept firearms, bazookas and grenades in his hotel in Paris, leading to an appearance before a military panel on allegations he was violating Geneva Convention rules concerning news correspondents. He claimed the weapons were in his room only because the military lacked storage space. Carrying a gun could make soldiers "look at reporters, particularly American reporters, as some kind of opponent," said Arnett, who is heading to Afghanistan soon as a correspondent for an independent production company. "The whole point of being a journalist is to be detached." Arnett said he hoped Rivera is trained in using a weapon. "I wouldn't want to be near him if he opened up," he said. As a young reporter in Vietnam, Arnett admitted to occasionally carrying a weapon before he was convinced it was unwise. He hasn't since, he said. Even if the journalists themselves are not armed, many news organizations - including The Associated Press - have hired armed guards for their personnel in particularly dangerous areas of Afghanistan. Expensive news equipment is considered tempting to thieves. "I can understand wanting to have a bodyguard," said Alex Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. "I think I would prefer to have someone with experience both locally and experience in their kind of battlegrounds and keep my focus on doing my job." But Jones said he wouldn't criticize a reporter who feels safer armed. "I can understand both sides of the argument," Jones said. "What I can't understand is if you're carrying a gun and talking about it." Rivera and Fox News Channel have both been outspoken in support of the U.S. war effort. Rivera, who left his CNBC talk show because he wanted to cover the war, has talked about killing Osama bin Laden if he had the opportunity. He's less willing to talk about his own personal security. "I haven't had a shower in two weeks and I have to defend whether I'm carrying a six-shooter?" he said. "It's just ridiculous."
BUMP for Gerald's excellent and unabashedly PRO-AMERICAN reporting!
Shut up your pie hole, Petah.
Another reason that the VC didn't bother our reporters all that much is that many of our reporters supported the North's propaganda machine. I venture to say that they often had similar missions.
You have a good point there dude. Previously, when Geraldo worked for NBC his biggest fans were liberal women and liberal effiminate men.
Now that he's doing the "conservative" con job, his biggest fans are conservative women and conservative effiminate men.
They all can have him.
Remember the line from The Patriot "what's the difference between one tyrant that's three thousand miles away and three thousand tyrants a mile away"? Are you one of the three-thousand tyrants? Is your tyrant OK but not mine? How do you know what is a principle? Isn't it 'that which will not be compromised'?
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as sommon sense.
Don't try to deflect the topic please. I have no problems with whatever this lying Dershowitz/Epstein toady chooses to use as a means of self defence.
You are very shallow, if you fall for this shyster's career saving change of venue(NBC told him he wasn't EVER going to get Brokaw's job or even subsitute for him).
Bill Clinton hung on until 2001, because of glib enablers like Whorealdo, who stuck up for him.
And now because Jerry Rivers get's paid to say what is trendy, you idolize him.
LOL!
I have never had much love for Whorealdo - I must admit, though, his special on Al Capone's buried treasure was..."priceless".
Give the guy some credit - he is showing a glimmer of common sense. I know, the same idiot that thought (probably still does) Clintoon was God.
At least the guy has enough common sense to have his own weapon in a combat zone. And the balls to go up front.
No wonder 'little Peter' Arnett is pissed. Him and Bernie sat in the hotel room and gave us a "blow by blow" account of day 1 Bagdad. My, my - how dangerous was that?
Don't like him, but I give credit where credit is due - he is doing his job and doing it smartly. As the saying goes, "When in Rome...pack a gun!!"
As for your statement, Geraldo is not the Maroon here - someone else is. ???
LVM
...conservatives...
...America in general...
...reality...
...Bernard Golgberg...
...Rush Limbaugh...
...Jesus...
...G.W...
...etc etc...
Me too Bill. I mean there are already 8 dead journalists. Do the Peter Arnetts of this world think the Al Queda or Taliban stopped and said "show me your press credentials" then let them go?? I don't think so.. dead is dead!! x8!!
As a Gun advocate, I think he has a right to defend himself. I know we'd feel the same way. Let me at least defend myself.
So (gosh, can't believe I'm even going to utter these words) Good for Geraldo!!!!
Was any American journalist pulling for Hitler? Did they even report on his rantings as much as modern journalists do the Taliban propaganda? What of the obvious agitprop of the Commies and Muslim world? Should they really be protected? They are most often an arm of hostile, murderous enslaving forces, so why should we view them as anything but enemy combatants?
They are human beings first, and as such, should defend themselves if need be. Also, no member of civilization can be 'neutral' with the forces of barbarism. Stay alive, stay true to what's right, that should be their priority, not pseudo-neutrality.
He's showing initative by going out and being on the front lines, he's right there at Tora Bora not far from the cave entrance instead of standing around in Kabul reporting second hand stories, and he seems to have picked a good group to be with.
When he comes back and starts spouting liberal pablum again, I reserve the right to detest him, but while he's doing a good job I have to give him credit for it.
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