Outside The Zone
BBC veteran hits back at "Green Zone" claims
By Neil Dodds
01 June, 2006
Senior BBC correspondent John Simpson has denied that reporters in Iraq are confined to the safety of the Green Zone and are fed stories by the US and British military.
Writing in the Guardian, Simpson was responding to former colleague Rageh Omaar's claim that BBC journalists spend most of their time in Baghdad's Green Zone because the city and surrounds have become too dangerous. In an interview in the Independent (which is now for paying readers only), Omaar said,
(It is time) "for news organisations to 'fess up' and make clear that many of the pictures that comprise what are effectively 'pooled reports' have been shot by anonymous Iraqi freelancers, whilst the Western journalists have remained inside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad. If we as an industry don't grapple with the question of putting up a health warning then we will slowly but surely have some of the legitimacy sapped from us."
Simpson's response is close to outright denial. It's possible that former "Stud Scud" Omaar was trying to drum up some business for his new employer, Al-Jazeera, which has already caused a stir by promising to bring western viewers an unsanitised new angle on the news from the Middle East. However, appearing to claim that your former employers - and their colleagues in other news organisations - are stringing viewers along is close to treason in the embattled broadcast industry.
Here's Simpson: "Well, as far as I know, there are no journalists working in the Green Zone nowadays. Even Fox TV, which sticks pretty close to the US military, is based outside. Every news organisation which has a permanent presence in Baghdad (and there are fewer and fewer of them) operates in the city itself....
"In his defence, Omaar has not been to Baghdad much since Saddam's fall, and things there have changed out of all recognition.... those of us who report from Baghdad regularly (I try to go every six weeks or so) know there is not a word of truth in any of (the claims): we do not remain inside the Green Zone, there are no pooled reports and there have not been any for three years now, and our pictures are not shot by anonymous freelancers. The BBC, from its ancient, uncomfortable house in the centre of Baghdad, maintains a basic team of about nine people, not counting locally-hired staff: a full-time correspondent, the redoubtable Andrew North, who took over from the equally brave Caroline Hawley; a second correspondent, who comes in from London or one of the BBC's foreign bureaux for six weeks at a time; a bureau chief/ editor, also from London or a bureau, and also for six weeks; two British, South African or Australian contract cameramen; a satellite engineer; and three security staff, usually ex-SAS or ex-Marines. People like me, the tourists, come for particular news events." (...)
"We do not cower in the Green Zone, waiting for US or British officials to spin us duff stories or for unknown cameramen to flog us dodgy bits of video that then receive some sort of credibility from our reporting. The BBC Baghdad bureau works exactly like each of our other bureaux around the world. We do our own reporting, and, like every major television news organisation, we have access to the work of the two big agencies, Reuters and APTN. Their Iraqi cameramen, who are neither anonymous nor freelance, film just about everything that happens in Iraq; and we use their material in Iraq just as we use it everywhere else, because we know it is good and trustworthy. And when it is too dangerous for us and our Iraqi staff to get out, we find out what is happening the old-fashioned way - by ringing people up and asking them."(...)
"I simply do not agree with Omaar that the legitimacy of television news has been sapped by our reporting from Baghdad. On the contrary, I think our work there gives us even greater legitimacy. It is, as I say, the world's biggest news story; and just because it is difficult and sometimes dangerous, that does not give us the right to turn our backs on it."
Simpson's response came days before two western crew members with CBS news were killed in an attack
in Baghdad. A third member of the team was seriously injured. Iraqi journalist Jaafar Ali was killed yesterday, bringing the total number of journalists and media support crew members killed since the 2003 invasion to 97.
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