groundtruth field guide

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GROUNDTRUTH:

A Field Guide for Correspondents

ground truth (noun) A term coined by NASA referring to the calibration process used in

satellite imagery. NASA states that ground truth is one part of the calibration process,

where a person on the ground makes a measurement of the same thing a satellite is tryingto measure at the same time the satellite is measuring it. The two answers are then com-

pared to help evaluate how well the satellite instrument is performing. Usually we believe

the ground truth more than the satellite..

In the digital age, advances in technology are allowing us to access more information than

ever, but too much information is coming in from afar without sufficient calibration. This

field guide and a newly launched initiative known as The GroundTruth Project draw on

the concept of ground truth to define a kind of calibration process for journalism, valu-ing the idea that being there on the ground and calibrating events in human terms is the

key to getting it right.


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INTRODUCTION

BOSTON GroundTruth is an idea that lies at the core of GlobalPost.

Since the day we launched in January 2009, it has been my hope that we would build a

news organization with solid values, clear standards and a deep belief in the idea that the

best journalism comes from being there on the ground to tell the stories that matter.

GroundTruth: A Field Guide for Correspondents is dedicated to putting some of these

standards in writing. The guide offers a way to state our standards and practice, as well

as to share important lessons learned in the field with editors,correspondents, column-

ists, photographers, videographers, bloggers and anyone who is involved in internationalnews.

In May 2013, we launched a new initiative to be called The GroundTruth Project, which

is dedicated to training the next generation of foreign correspondents and drawing them

in to the circle of beliefs outlined in this field guide. The GroundTruth Project, which I

am heading up with award winning photographer and Visual Editor Gary Knight, relies

on generous support from a host of funders, including The Ford Foundation, The Henry

Luce Foundation, the Open Hands Initiative, the Bake Family Trust and others. Thisfunding provides resources for training and mentoring in the field as well as substantial

support for correspondents to produce in-depth Special Reports on human rights, global

health, religious beliefs, environmental issues and investigative reporting in under-re-

ported corners of the world.

In this updated 2013 edition of GroundTruth, we have added a new essay by GlobalPost

Senior Correspondent Tracey Sheltonon first aid training as a required part of her as-

signment in Syria. We have also included coverage of a World Press Freedom Day event atGlobalPost headquarters in Boston so we could share and highlight the advice of a panel

of top journalists who are intent on helping other journalists, particularly freelancers,

ensure that they and their editors have thought through their assignments, assessed the

risks and that they are thoroughly prepared with the adequate training and resources

needed to operate safely in the field.

Our collective concern for safety was dramatically underscored in a particularly danger-

ous year for correspondents around the world and a year in which we have been con-sumed with worry about our own correspondent James Foleywho was taken hostage in

Syria on November 22, 2012. Foley, a freelance journalist who has done outstanding work


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for GlobalPost in the Middle East and in Afghanistan, was previously captured by govern-

ment forces in Libya in 2011 and released after 45 days. As of this publishing, Foley was still

being held in Syria while GlobalPost and a global community of news organizations con-

tinue to press for his immediate release.

This field guide is very much a working document, the same way your dispatches from thefield are a rough draft of history.

There is a revolution going on in media right now, a time of uncertainty for many tradi-

tional news organizations but also a time of great opportunity. We are in the tumult of the

digital age and we love being there. Its truly an exciting time to innovate, to experiment

with new ways of gathering the news and to try pioneering business models that will fund

the operations. We believe it is smart and necessary to keep our eyes wide open to new

and perhaps better ways of carrying out the craft of reporting and the art of storytellingeven as we carefully adhere to traditional beliefs in the importance of accuracy and fair-

ness and good, old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting from the ground.

This is the fourth year of our field guide since we launched the website in January 2009.

And through this guide, we seek to create a community of correspondents decorated

veterans, mid-career professionals and younger journalists looking for their first shot at a

foreign assignment. We hope the field guide might be a place where they can share their

insights and stories and learn from each other in a rapidly changing environment for in-ternational journalism.

To that end, we have collected essays along the way from correspondents connected to

GlobalPost. There are essays from last year by GlobalPost correspondent James Foley

about his own capture in Libya and hard lessons learned about the importance of stepping

back to assess the situation on the ground before chasing the story to the frontlines and

a piece by GlobalPost CEO and co-founder Philip S. Balboniabout the work behind the

scenes that was required to secure his release. We have tried to use the experience as a wayto re-affirm a culture of safety for our correspondents around the world, and with Foley

missing again it is a doubly powerful reminder of the importance of following the advice

and expectations, particularly for operating in hostile environments, we present in this

field guide.

The idea of these essays and the field guide itself is to codify our core beliefs. That is, we

believe in fairness. We believe in accuracy. We believe the best reporting comes from the

ground by people who not only report from but live in and understand the culture andthe language where they are reporting. We believe in listening and allowing yourself to

be convinced by a point of view you may not have considered before. We believe good

reporters do more than merely present two sides of an issue, they unearth facts and then


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consider all sides in a way that helps create a new understanding of the kinds of complex

issues that we face globally.

We believe in giving voice to the voiceless. We believe in respect for different faiths and

cultures and ways of seeing the world, and we believe there is an added power to working

together with colleagues who are from the places we are covering. We believe humor is agood way to get at truth, but we have less time for laughs at someone elses expense. We

believe in connecting the dots and saying something important without resorting to the

kind of rabidly opinionated reporting that shapes too much of the new media landscape.

We believe in good storytelling, gripping narratives that inform and enlighten.

We believe there is a higher value to the truths uncovered by reporters who are there on

the ground, one that transcends the opinions formed in the relative comforts of academia

and think tanks or through content aggregation carried out by those cloistered in officecubicles far away from the events as they unfold. While we adhere to ground truth, we

are also mindful that we do not want the concept to be perceived as arrogance, as if there

is only one truth. The idea of being there on the ground is to uncover many truths and to

assemble them fairly in a way that enlightens and informs.

BY CHARLES M. SENNOTT,GlobalPost Co-founder and Editor-at-Large

World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2013


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ONE:Be there.

Its all about being there.

There are few values that GlobalPost holds higher than having correspondents who live in

the place about which they write, and who know its language and culture. Many of you are

native speakers or fluent already. And for those of you who are not, we eagerly encourage

you to study the language of the places in which you are reporting. We believe interna-

tional reporting requires you to be a first-hand observer of the events unfolding in the

country you cover. We believe that the strength of GlobalPost will be having a breadth of

coverage by reporters with an ear to the ground. We are looking for the kind of authorita-

tive reporting that can only come from a reporter who is living the story.

Ground truth sounds like a simple idea. But its not so easy when the ground you are on

is a shifting, complex story that requires knowledge about and a deep background on the

forces shaping the news. We have reporters who do this in the places where there is ongo-

ing conflict like Iraq and Afghanistan; in places where there is a contradictory mix of pov-

erty and opportunity like India and Brazil; where there are ancient cultures to understand

in a modern context from China to the Andes. Our correspondents will be there on the

ground equipped with the knowledge that is needed to interpret the events in a way that

allow visitors to the site to truly see and understand what is happening, why it is happen-

ing, and what it means.

This is not a new idea by any means. It is just good, old-fashioned reporting.

But these days we believe there is too much distant analysis not only at news

organizations but also at international businesses and even in military and national

security organizations by those who are too far removed from the ground.

Those who analyze from on high are only one part of the calibration process in

understanding a complex world. They are like the satellite viewing the image from afar,

and we want to be that optic on the ground telling you what it really looks like. As NASA

states in its own definition, we believe the ground truth more than the satellite.

So do we.


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TWO: Be safe.

We recognize that the world has never been a more dangerous place for reporters to

practice the principle of ground truth.

In fact, the year 2012 was the most dangerous year on record for journalists, according to

the International Press Institute, since the organization began keeping records in 1997.

More than 1,500 members of news organizations, including journalists, translators and

fixers have been killed doing their jobs in the last decade, according to the International

News Safety Institute which is also tracking the data. These journalists have been killed

in the crossfires of conflict, they have been targeted for murder for reporting stories that

someone did not want told, and theyve died just like countless thousands of other inno-

cent victims of conflict from random shelling or road side bombs or for driving too fast in

a dangerous setting.

Aware of these perils to reporting, we want to have a clear set of guidelines for how to

operate safely in the field. To that end, we can provide at your request a set of documents

by various organizations which offer sound advice on covering conflict and reporting in

potentially dangerous situations.

They include the following: On Assignment: Covering Conflict Safely by the Com-

mittee to Protect Journalists; Killing the Messenger by the International News Safety

Institute; A Survival Guide for Journalists by the International Federation of Journalists

and Tragedies and Journalists by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. For those

of you reporting in hostile environments, I strongly encourage you to get ahold of these

documents and read through them carefully. They are great references. They offer the

kind of practical advice that can save your life and save the lives of colleagues and support

staff around you. They do a better job than we could in spelling out how to work on a dan-

gerous assignment and we expect you to heed their recommendations. A primary recom-

mendation that each of these organizations make is for clear communication with editors

about your whereabouts and to never enter into a story without a game plan for staying in

touch. We want to be clear that no GlobalPost correspondent should ever go on an assign-

ment particularly a dangerous one without prior approval from a senior GlobalPost

editor. And when on such an assignment, constant contact is required.

Virtually all of these organizations also recommend hostile environment training for

reporters covering conflict. We are listening to these specific recommendations as well

and implementing them as policy. (For those of you reporting in hostile environments

particularly where hostage taking is a possibility, more precise terms of our policies can be

made available and should be discussed with your editor.)


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THREE:Be a listener.

We believe strongly that the greatest correspondents hear as many sides of an issue as pos-

sible before they begin writing or producing multimedia.

The most memorable stories are the ones that surprise us, that contravene our precon-

ceptions. And we believe those stories come from listening carefully to the community

you are covering. They come from being fair and reporting without bias. Most of all, they

come from listening.

We encourage you to give voice to the voiceless. There is a big world out there and too

often our news is shaped by politicians and diplomats and officials. Of course, their pro-nouncements from press conferences and embassy briefings matter and affect lives and

we need them in our stories. But the best reporting is the kind of reporting that comes up

from the street that includes the voices of the people who stand to be affected by the deci-

sions of the powerful.

It is a customary practice in reporting these days, but back in the early 1960s when the

legendary New York City columnist Jimmy Breslin was writing for the New York Daily

News he broke new ground by listening and giving voice to the people he knew from thestreets of New York. In perhaps his most vivid expression of this style of reporting, Breslin

covered the 1963 state funeral of John F. Kennedy. Amid the dignitaries, the heads of state,

and the somber weight of the moment in history, Breslin interviewed the man whose job

it was to dig the ditch where the fallen presidents casket would be lowered into the earth.

In the parlance of a New York City newsroom, its now known as a gravedigger story. Its

the story about the little guy that tells us what we need to know about a big moment in

history.

This may feel old hat to a reporter who has worked in a newsroom in the last 20 years. But

we are aware at GlobalPost that there is a new generation of international correspondents

coming of age who have not always had that experience. And if a young journalist were to

only get their news online or to watch cable news coverage of many issues today, they may

not understand these values at all. So apologies to veterans here and a plea to correspond-

ents who are newer to the craft to bring this spirit of listening to your work.


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FOUR:Be fair and accurate.

Out of careful listening comes fair, truthful reporting. And truth is always the best de-

fense against libel.

Check the facts all the time. Check spelling, particularly the spelling of names and be

sure you have the proper title of a source. We are employing the AP Stylebook. GlobalPost

has also developed a formal policy for corrections and clarifications on the site, which is

included in this manual. Any correspondent whose work requires persistent corrections

on issues of material fact, will be warned that their relationship with GlobalPost will be

terminated if a pattern of inaccurate reporting occurs.

Accuracy matters and our reputation as a news organization and your reputation as a cor-

respondent rely on getting it right. There is a great axiom of deadline reporting: When in

doubt, leave it out. Live by that. Only write about the things you know, the things youve

seen with your own eyes and be sure you have clear and accurate attribution on every-

thing else. If you live by these relatively simple and straightforward rules, you will always

be on solid footing.

We discourage the use of unnamed sources. We believe it is far better to get a comment onthe record. We encourage correspondents to always try their best to get a name attached

to a comment. Sometimes it requires asking more than once, but persistence is better

than accepting a blind quote and finding out later it is unusable.

We understand that there are circumstances in which anonymity is necessary to protect

the life or livelihood of a source, but that is the only occasion in which unnamed sources

should be used. GlobalPost retains the right to request a reporter to share with a senior

editor any unnamed source of a story.

GlobalPost also forbids any reporter from writing on a story in which they have a vested

economic interest or a clear political bias. The spirit of full disclosure matters in reporting

and we request that you let us know if you believe there is any potential line that might be

crossed during the course of your reporting.

We are aware that our correspondents operate in many corners of the world where there

are different legal standards for journalism and different ideas about what constitutes

fairness. But we hold to a very American tradition of journalism in this regard and one

that we believe is a proud tradition.

Our research shows legal precedent is being established that online news organizations


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will be held to the legal standards of reporting in the country from which they originate,

which for us, of course, is the United States. As the United States has perhaps the most

fierce protections of freedom of the press of any country in the world, we believe that

good, honest, accurate and fair reporting from any place in the world will always put

us on solid legal ground. (GlobalPost has a standard libel insurance policy, which offers

protections for the organization. If anyone has questions about the policy, we will make

ourselves available.) If you are ever working on a story that you believe is potentially

libelous or if any one you are reporting on threatens any legal action, you are obliged to

get in touch with your editor promptly and directly.


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FIVE:Be honest.

Be sure you are accredited as a journalist and work within the guidelines set by the press

office in your respective country. Always identify yourself as a reporter when you are

working in the field.

Any fabrication of quotes or made-up reporting will not be tolerated and will be consid-

ered grounds for GlobalPost to immediately end its relationship with a correspondent.

The same prohibitions on fabrication hold true for multimedia. And GlobalPost forbids

the manipulation of any photos, audio or video in a manner that distorts reality or mis-

represents any facts or quotes.

Plagiarism will be grounds for terminating a contract with GlobalPost. Plagiarism in-

cludes not only directly copying someone elses words, but it can also include heavy bor-

rowing of quotes, ideas, images and insights without proper attribution.

We recognize that most of you out there in the field are freelancers who must juggle

working for several different outlets. We ask that you be fair and honest with us when you

are balancing these sometimes competing interests. If you have offered a story to another

publication, we request that you inform us of that up front. We always want the storyfirst and we always want it exclusively. We wouldnt be much of a news organization, if

we didnt. That said, of course, it would be unfair for us to demand complete loyalty and

total exclusivity in a community of freelancers. We know you have to make a living. And

we believe the simplest, best way to avoid any problems in this area is through a relation-

ship that is based on clear communication and mutual trust. And that means we want to

trust that the stories you are writing for us are not appearing somewhere else, and that

your work for GlobalPost is unique. At times, we know you will rely on the reporting and

quotes youve gathered in the field to write for multiple outlets. But, again, you are obliged

to be sure that the stories are substantially rewritten if you are offering them to us for pay-

ment.

GlobalPost reporters should not accept gifts or any payment from a source involved in a

story, nor should they offer any gifts or payment in return for getting a story.

Any time a correspondent or columnists is provided travel or lodging as part of a reporting

trip, this should be discussed in advance with an editor. Typically, we will not permit suchtrips. But there are exceptions when GlobalPost believes it wise and sometimes necessary

to accept free flights on international aid and trade missions or military flights. We may

also, for example, allow our global health or technology writers to take an expense-paid


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trip by an industry group as long as the correspondent has clearly established with his or

her host that none of the services-in-kind will influence the outcome of the reporting. If

GlobalPost does accept such a trip, we will let visitors to the site know so they have full

transparency and can judge for themselves if any undue influence has crept in to the cov-

erage as a result. We the editors will be working very hard to be sure it does not.

In May 2013, GlobalPost announced The GroundTruth Project, a non-profit initiative

dedicated to training the next generation of international correspondents and to fund

some areas of coverage that we could not otherwise afford, such as sustained human

rights and global health reporting. This foundation-supported initiative is an important

part of our news organization and its values and we believe this kind of non-profit funding

can provide valuable opportunities for GlobalPost to do good work. But we also recognize

that there is a need to be transparent about this foundation support as well as contenton our site that is made possible through corporate advertising or sponsorship. In all of

these partnerships, we remain vigilant in maintaining our complete editorial independ-

ence. Toward that end, we have drafted guidelines for standards and practices for all such

support of editorial projects. In a nutshell, the standards revolve around one guiding prin-

ciple. That is, we will maintain complete editorial independence and control in any such

relationship with a foundation, individual or corporation that is funding, underwriting or

sponsoring editorial content.


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SIX:Be on time and be in touch.

We are a small company with a global mission.

In an average month, GlobalPost has about 100 correspondents contributing to the site

from at least 50 different countries. So we have a sprawling enterprise that could easily

come undone if our correspondents do not stick to all deadlines.

In a reorganization of our news coverage in the summer and fall of 2010, we established

different levels of engagement with correspondents and senior correspondents around

the world. That means each of you have different expectations for what you are to deliver

on a regular basis to your editor.

But there are definitely some core expectations. That is that pitches will be made to re-

spective regional editors and when they are agreed upon they are assigned a deadline for

delivery. Stories are to be delivered on time to your respective editor. Making deadline is

critical. We accept that reality changes, that stories sometimes dont pan out, that a better

breaking story comes along. This will inevitably happen. But when such circumstances

occur, a correspondent must communicate a change in game plan with his or her editor.

Communication is key. GlobalPost understands that freelancing is largely for the free-spirited. We do not expect those of you who are freelancers to be bound to us or to a daily

schedule in the way a staff correspondent would be. But we do expect to be able to reach

you in the event of an emergency or a significant breaking news story. So please be sure

that we always have your updated contact information.

If a correspondent consistently misses deadlines or fails to stay in contact with us, they

will be given a warning. If the pattern continues, their relationship with GlobalPost will be

terminated.


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SEVEN:Be a storyteller.

Experiment with storytelling in the digital age and have some fun with it.

We believe being an international correspondent is one of the greatest vocations in the

world. Its a calling. An invitation to go out to a distant land, to find great stories and to re-

port them back to a home audience. You can be covering serious diplomatic initiatives one

day and writing about wine the next. You can cover a fascinating crime story or delve into

a story about the environment or a business venture that is breaking new ground. The

great thing about being an international correspondent is the freedom.

Put simply, we want you to find the great stories and tell them. And in this digital age,

we want you to experiment with how you do that. We want you to think of yourself as a

publisher of your own country or topic page or blog. On these pages, we encourage you to

help us set up important links and to host interesting blogs. Our primary focus is on the

written dispatches that are short in length, typically no more than 800 words. These are

expected to be well-reported, well-crafted, tightly written pieces of reportage.

There are many ways to tell a story in the digital age. We dont expect any of you to

be experts across all platforms. We respect people who prefer to stick to their own field

of expertise as a writer, photographer or videographer. But we do want to invite all of

you to experiment with reporting across different platforms. Through The GroundTruth

Project we will be offering fellowships that will focus on mentoring and training corre-

spondents in the art of storytelling in the digital age. We hope you keep experimenting.

We want photographers to try their hand at writing, and writers to try their hand at pho-

tography. And we want everyone everywhere to think about capturing live, breaking news

events with video through your iPhone or any other device you can get your hands on.

Be creative.

In the end of the day, great journalism is about great storytelling. And what we want more

than anything is for you to go out and find great stories.


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BE SOCIAL

Over the past three years, GlobalPost has built a social audience on Facebook and Twitter

approaching 400,000 individuals and growing. By the end of 2013, we expect this social

graph to continue to climb at a steady pace. Since the launch of the new GlobalPost.com

in January 2011, we have rolled out an even more integrated social platform to allow read-

ers to share and engage with each other around GlobalPost content. We encourage you,

as the Correspondent team, to get involved in the social conversation. Help us and our

readers share your stories by participating in the social conversations happening everyday.

Below is a list of ways to get engaged through social media that our social media team,

Antler, has compiled.

Connect

Start by Liking or

Following GlobalPost on:

Twitter:

www.twitter.com/GlobalPost

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/globalpost

Tumblr:

globalpost.tumblr.com/

Reddit:

www.reddit.com/domain/globalpost.com

Instagram

www.instagram.com/globalpost

Activate

If you have a Twitter profile send it to us,

we have a Twitter List for correspondents:

twitter.com/GlobalPost/gp-reporters.

Spread your content within your network:

Share the article to your

Facebook wall

Like it on the GlobalPost fan page

Tweet it to your network

Ask your friends and network to

share with their networks.

ADDENDUM

In this version of the field guide for 2013, we are including two important documents.

The first is a chapter titled Be Social, a one-page cheat sheet on best practices for social

networking by our correspondents with an eye toward expanding the audience for yourstories. The second is our Policy for Corrections, which clearly spells out GlobalPosts

standards and practices in the event of an error in reporting or editing that needs to be

corrected or clarified on the site.
http://twitter.com/GlobalPosthttp://www.facebook.com/globalposthttp://globalpost.tumblr.com/http://www.reddit.com/domain/globalpost.comhttp://twitter.com/GlobalPost/gp-reportershttp://twitter.com/GlobalPost/gp-reportershttp://www.reddit.com/domain/globalpost.comhttp://globalpost.tumblr.com/http://www.facebook.com/globalposthttp://twitter.com/GlobalPost


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Engage

Join the conversation. The majority of the stories we post on Facebook and Reddit get a

good conversation around them. Feel free to join in these conversations, and on your own

stories, identify yourself as the author. Weve seen more engagement in the conversationswhen the author participates.

Share

Re-tweet articles from GlobalPost or other GlobalPost reporters

Suggest that your network follow @GlobalPost on twitter or GlobalPost on Facebook

Suggest that your network follow the GlobalPost correspondent twitter list

If you know other individuals or news outlets that may be interested in your article,

share it with them via Facebook or Twitter


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BE BIG ENOUGH

TO CORRECT MISTAKES

Since launch in 2009, GlobalPost has earned a reputation for accuracy and fairness.

We should all be proud of that. Its a solid reputation weve built upon the hard work

and vigilance of editors and the careful and thorough reporting of correspondents in

the field. And one of the best ways to preserve that reputation is to have a clear policy for

corrections and to be attentive to the process as a news organization. The philosophy

behind GlobalPosts correction policy is simple: If an error of fact has been made, correct

it. Then, for the sake of transparency, acknowledge that the correction has been made in

an editors note.

Heres how we spelled out the process in the original field guide:

We find out about a possible error. If correspondents are alerted to an error in a piece,

they must contact their editor ASAP. We also find out about errors through emails to

GlobalPost and, frequently, comments.

The editor, with the help of the correspondent, should investigate the alleged error and

let editors know about the request and suggested remedy.

If GlobalPost determines that a correction is necessary, the editor will make the

correction according to the guidelines below and note it in the correction file saved on

the share drive.

For errors of spelling (with the exception of proper nouns), grammar, or punctuation

there is no need to note the correction.


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Some more specific guidelines:

Misspellings of names; incorrect titles

Fix the spelling or title and then add an editors note.

Editors note: This story has been updated to correct the spell-

ing of John Smiths name.

Factual errors

Correct the error in the story and then specify which error has been fixed in the editors

note. For multiple errors, note each correction.

Editors note: This story has been updated to correct

the population of the United States. It is about 308 mil-

lion. The spelling of John Smiths name has also been

corrected.

Headlines

If you are changing a headline to take account of SEO, updated news, or simply a brilliant

idea, there is no need to add an editors note. However, if there was an error of fact in the

headline, put an editors note at the bottom of the story. The same applies to sub-head-

lines and story teases.

Errors that call into question

the premise of a story.GlobalPost has had, touch wood, only one example of such an error since we launched:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/diplomacy/091202/us-company-fuels-congo-war-

un-report

In this case, we removed the story from the website and wrote a detailed editors note.

We also sent the editors note to our syndication partners and asked them to make the

correction in their publications as appropriate. Should we have another error of this mag-

nitude we would follow the same procedure, which involved consulting with the writer

on what went wrong and contacting the entity that was the subject of the correction.

In the case of such a serious correction, especially if there is any threat of legal action, alert

Editor Thomas Mucha or Vice President Rick Byrne.


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Blogs

In blogs (or in reporters notebooks) we will follow standard web practice for making and

acknowledging a correction: using strikethrough.

Multimedia

We have not to my knowledge had to correct an error of fact in a stand-alone video or

photo gallery. Should we need to do that, the correction could be acknowledged in the

body field. It unfortunately offers a very limited amount of text. In a photo gallery, the cor-

rection could be acknowledged within the caption in question.

Developing news stories

Please do add an update to a story to take account of breaking news this is particularly

helpful for SEO and the update should include keywords. These updates should appear in

italics at the top of the story.

Update: The death toll in CITY had risen to 80 by the time the

search at LOCATION was temporarily called off at sunset, Reu-

ters reported. CITY police said one suspect was in custody and a

suspected two additional suspects were still at large.

Clarifications

In the rare case where GlobalPost feels a story is correct but a source or organization feels

it needs clarification, consult with editors on how to respond. In most cases, we will invite

the source to comment.

Things we dont do:

Assign blame, for example by citing an editing error or a reporting error.

Regret errors. Clearly, we regret all errors so we dont need to specify which ones we really,

really regret.


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DISPATCHES FROM THE FIELD

GlobalPost is creating not only an international news website, but a community of foreign

correspondents. You are a band of freelancers scattered around the globe, but we see you

all as one team, one tribe and we want to encourage and foster a sense of camaraderie.

That is too often missing from the wonderfully independent, but sometimes isolating

life of a freelancer particularly in the digital age. So we hope you might stay connected

and share insights and stories from the field and learn from each other. When possible we

hope you might even help each other in these times of both great uncertainty and abun-

dant possibility for the future of journalism.

To that end, we have collected essays over the last three years from correspondents and

writers connected to GlobalPost that we think are worth sharing. In this edition, we have

two essays that focus on a set of lessons we at GlobalPost learned in Libya during the so-

called Arab Spring. . They include: GlobalPost contributing columnist HDS Greenway

about his nearly 50 years of work in foreign news; GlobalPost former Afghanistan Bureau

Chief Jean MacKenzie on lessons learned in a tough year in Afghanistan; GlobalPost

editorial board member Sebastian Junger on practical advice that keeps you alive covering

conflict; Moscow correspondent Miriam Elder discussing the perils of reporting in Russia;

GlobalPosts former Deputy Managing Editor Andrew Meldrum on covering and living

the story of Zimbabwe for 23 years; the BBCs Simon Wilson shares what he learned fromthe Gaza kidnapping of a colleague; GlobalPosts contributing correspondent Jane Arraf

provides a womans perspective on covering the war in Iraq; former GlobalPost corre-

spondent-at-large Matt McAllester self-effacing look back on his reporting from Fallujah;

and veteran correspondent William Dowell on the thrill of a world-class scoop.

.;

Each of these dispatches from the field tells a story that offers a teaching moment, a new

way to define ground truth, a cautionary tale or a celebration of the craft. We would like

for this collection to grow. And so any of you who would like to contribute an essay for

next years field guide, please let me know.

C. M. Sennott


25/7225


26/7226

On first aid training for

correspondents covering conflict

- By Tracey Shelton

GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Middle East

NEW YORK The bodies covered in blood lay strewn across the concrete. Smoke can-

isters added to the confusion of the scene. A random woman dressed in a full burqa stum-

bled along, bumping us as we scurried about throwing tourniquets and bandages on our

patients.

We worked as fast as we could, but tourniquets came loose. We made some wrong calls onthose we were trying to help and we didnt manage to save them all.

If you are going to kill someone, now is the time to do it, said one of our first aid instruc-

tors, Sawyer Alberi.

Out of context, such a sentence might sound pretty terrible. But the callousness of it

drove home the importance of what we were doing: training to perform emergency first

aid on the mannequins doused in fake blood and on a few actors posing as our patients.

The reenactment of a battle scene took place in the backyard of the Bronx Documen-

tary Center in New York City, hosting a training session provided by RISC, or Report-

ers Instructed in Saving Colleagues. The initiative to train reporters in emergency first

aid was started by Sebastian Junger after the death of his dear friend and colleague Tim

Hetherington with whom he produced the award-winning documentary about the war in

Afghanistan titled Restrepo.

Hetherington died from an arterial bleed after being wounded in a mortar blast whilereporting on the frontlines in Misrata, Libya. Tim and photographer Chris Hondros, who

was also killed in the attack, like so many of us, were both freelance journalists working in

a conflict zone along side other freelancers. The kind of training that RISC now provides

is the kind of training that might have saved the lives of Chris and Tim.

Through RISC, Junger, an award-winning journalist, author and documentarian and a

member of the GlobalPost editorial advisory board, is instilling in all of us a sense that

freelancers and the news organizations they work for need to be sure that anyone whoreports from a hostile environment has the right training to do so.

So when we gathered in the Bronx for this training session, we were not just patching up


27/7227

fake casualties; we were practicing for what may one day be a very real situation.

Over four days of training, we would have plenty of time to learn from our mistakes.

We knew what we were learning could mean the difference between life and death for

ourselves, our colleagues or people we meet in the field.

As I stabbed a 5-inch needle into the lung of my fake patient, it was hard not to wonder

what on earth had led our little group of 24 freelance correspondents to choose a career

that is likely to see us in need of these battlefield medical skills.

I have been asked many versions of this same question countless times. Why take life-

threatening risks to report on someone elses war? While thousands flee a battle zone, why

do we run headfirst into it?

For me, the reason is the same as it is for the men we photograph fighting and dyingon the battlefield. We believe in what we do. Our cause is not political, religious, tribal

or territorial, but is definitely a vocation and a craft that you have to believe in if you

are going to take risks to do it. This pursuit, put simply, is to be there as a witness to war

and to enlighten people about what is happening on the ground. Without judgment,

we are trying to capture war in all of its complexity, its human drama and its often terrible

consequences.

Even though we believe in the necessity of what we do, we also know first hand that thereis no glory in unnecessary risk or senseless death. We see what it does to people, to fami-

lies, to friends. If we think about our own families going through such agony, how could

we not take every precaution to keep ourselves as safe as possible?

My circumstances may be somewhat different than most. I was never one to settle down.

Ive lived my life very much alone. I have no one waiting at home for me. I fact, I dont even

have a home and havent had one for many years. If my circumstances were different, I

might rethink my career choices. But for now, if someone has to take a risk to get crucialinformation to the world, I have often felt that it is better me than my colleagues with

partners and children.

I dont fear dying for what I believe in, but I do fear capture or disappearing without a

trace. There is no pain worse than the agony of not knowing. This is something I never

want my family and friends to know.

Looking back, I have made my share of bad calls. Ive been too trusting, too eager, too

flippant with the dangers. I covered the whole Libyan revolution without ever having

regular contact with anyone in the outside world. In one incident, I was attacked in my

hotel room by armed assailants in the middle of the night. I narrowly escaped kidnapping

by getting free of my binds and jumping from the balcony. Looking back, I know that if I


28/7228

had gone missing it would have been weeks, maybe months, before anyone even realized I

was gone.

I was lucky, but in Syria you need more than luck.

After the kidnapping of my colleague James Foley in November in Syria, I learned

a horrible lesson about the kind of information that can help in tracking down a

missing journalist.

I now keep an updated list of all my contacts in each area with my editor and a close col-

league including phone numbers, Skype handles and Facebook addresses. I check in every

day with changes of plan, stories Im working on and interviews Im planning. I have a

solid base of contacts and commanders from secular to extremists who could help track

me down if anything went wrong.

I only use trusted contacts that I have known and have been working with for many

months and do not reveal my travel plans or where I am staying to anyone outside of this

circle. A lot of these methods are spelled out in this field guide and in the essays by other

correspondents. But as the risk to journalists in the field continues to rise, I am reminded

that it is incredibly important to be sure to stick to the plan and live up to the advice and

the expectations on how to operate safely in a dangerous place.

I was lucky I began working in Syria over a year ago when things were very different. Backthen the real danger came from the regime. There was a certain level of trust within the

opposition forces. If I was asked to begin covering Syria for the first time now, Im quite

sure I would refuse. Without an already well-established network in country, I simply

couldnt operate the way I do.

Most importantly, keeping low-key and blending in as much as possible, particularly when

traveling and returning to a home base is crucial. I dress as much like a local woman as

possible and imitate their behavior in the street so as not to draw any unwanted atten-tion. I know most female reporters are opposed to such measures, but these days in Syria a

headscarf can save your life. Im quite sure it has saved mine more than once.

Lastly, I would encourage all journalists working in conflict zones to take the RISC course

in battlefield medical training. Knowing how to treat wounds may very likely help you

save a life one day, maybe even your own.


29/7229


30/7230

Editors Note

BOSTON To mark World Press Freedom Day 2013 and to raise awareness about the

unknown fate of journalist James Foley, GlobalPost hosted a gathering titled Silenced

Voices: When Journalists Go Missing.

Foley, 39, had last been seen on November 22, 2012 in northwest Syria where he had been

contributing video reports to GlobalPost and other news organizations. Since his abduc-

tion by unknown gunmen, GlobalPost has led an exhaustive investigation into his where-

abouts. It was at the May 3 event that GlobalPost CEO Philip Balboni first confirmed that

GlobalPost and the Foley family believed with a high degree of confidence that James

was taken by a pro-Syrian government military group and being held in a Syrian prison.

The ordeal was not the first for the Foley family, nor for GlobalPost.

Foley had been captured by Libya forces in 2011. At that time, his captors allowed him to

make a phone call to confirm he was alive. But this time, the family has had no contact

with him since he was abducted. In Libya, Foley was finally released after 45 days. But this

time his hostage ordeal has gone on for more than five months without any proof of life. It

has been torturous for his family, a big Irish clan from New Hampshire. Foley is the oldestof five siblings.

And the Foley story has also been a sober reminder for GlobalPost and other news organi-

zations of the tremendous risk that correspondents take in covering a story like Syria, and

the tremendous responsibility that we as editors and publishers have to be sure they oper-

ate safely and with adequate resources to do the job right.

The year 2012 had been a uniquely perilous year for journalists. According to the Interna-

tional Press Institute, 133 journalists were killed in the line of duty or as a consequence of

their reporting in 2012. It was the highest death toll for journalists since IPI started keep-

ing track of their deaths in 1997.

The May 3 event included a panel discussion on the perils of reporting in the post 9-11 era

which included Reuters columnist David Rohde, a former New York Times correspondent

who was kidnapped by the Taliban in November 2008 and managed to escape as well as

freelance correspondent Roxanna Saberi, who was arrested in 2009 in Tehran for approxi-

mately four months before being tried and convicted of espionage and then released.

Both of these correspondents told gripping tales of being held captive and expressed re-

gret that they had not done more to prevent their ordeal, and have dedicated themselves

to promoting safety for journalists operating in the field.


31/7231

When asked by the moderator of the event what Rohde would have wanted his news or-

ganization to do on his behalf if he were in the same situation as James, he answered:

Pressure the Syrian government, simply put. Write it. Tweet it. And now that the familys

made a decision to go public, hold their feet to the fire in Damascus. I think its good news

in the short term that hes hopefully with the government. I think hes safer. It could be alonger captivity also, as well, if he becomes some sort of pawn in some larger thing. But I

do think for his immediate safety this is good news.

Rohde, who had also been detained once before when he was covering the conflict in the

Balkans, said that he believed it was crucial for news organizations to have clear standards

and expectations for their correspondents. He applauded GlobalPost for its diligent ef-

forts on behalf of Foley and its attempts to establish clear protocols for operating safely in

the field amid the shifting landscape of journalism.

I think there are more freelancers. Theyre not as well supported and its more dangerous

than ever for journalists. GlobalPost has worked on its field guide, and its an important

effort. The NY Times has struggled with this. Reuters is struggling with this. Steve Adler,

the editor of Reuters, is constantly worried about our people in Syria, said Rohd.

He added, I think its a great standard GlobalPost is setting for everyone by backing

Jim so much, by having this field guide, and trying to set up procedures that do matter

like checking in with editors and making sure there is a game plan. This matters. It

really matters.


32/7232

Stepping back to assess a bad day in Libya

By James Foley

GlobalPost correspondent

MISRATA, Libya I was captured by forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi

on April 5 and held for 45 days before being released. Now seven months later, I am back

covering the rebels as they have succeeded in taking the capital and beginning to establish

a new government.

Its good to be back. This story matters and I wanted to be here telling it from the

frontlines.

But just about every day since I was freed and just about every moment I am here report-

ing from Libya, I have been reflecting on the lessons learned from that harrowing experi-

ence. I saw a colleague killed. My family was thrown into a world of constant worry. The

news organization I work for was thrust into a situation of working around the clock on

my behalf.

Its fair to ask why did I go back, and why am I still drawn to the story? Its fair to ask if

there were mistakes made and its important to think through how I will avoid making

them in the future.

So let me walk through that day and try to address some of the lessons learned along

the way.

Our idea that morning of April 5, the day we were captured, was to go to the front

in eastern Libya to see fresh battle damage from the night before and spend the day with

the rebels.

Libyan fighters on both sides of the conflict were known for being late sleepers. We

believed it was early enough to get a look at the frontline and take an assessment of what

the rebel positions were before the fighting started.

The pattern in Libya had been quiet mornings followed by rockets and mortar attacks in

the afternoon. The problem is we were assuming that pattern would hold, just because we

hadnt seen any morning fighting before.

Three other freelancers and I jumped in a scout bus and headed past the last checkpoint

towards the Gaddafi-held town of Brega. We knew it was risky. The burning vehicles we

passed were signs of fresh fighting. But we didnt step back to take a better assessment,


33/7233

and we should have. Being careful in assessing your reporting every step of the way is to

the key to making good decisions. Before we knew it, some teenagers on the side of the

road informed us that us Gaddafi forces were 300 meters away.

Minutes later, two Gaddafi military pickups topped the crest of the hill and bore down on

us firing their AK-47s. We were too far away from the retreating vehicle that had broughtus, and there was just too much gunfire to run for it.

We hit the ground. Any reporter whos been under direct fire knows, the body reacts much

before the mind can process what is actually happening. The mind will even present the

illusion of a way out, but the flight or fight instincts are fully in control. We burrowed our-

selves as much as possible into a small sand dune on the side of the road, as the Gaddafi

vehicles slowed to a stop upon seeing us, and continued to fire on full or semi-automatic.

From behind my sand dune, I heard our colleague Anton cry, Help, help. His voice car-

ried the tinge of a serious injury. I shouted if he was OK.

No, he said, in a much weaker voice. The awful reality kicked in. I imagined he was

bleeding badly.

The soldiers might not even know we were reporters. I jumped up, holding my hands and

walked towards them, yelling the word for journalist in Arabic.

I was struck across my chin with the wooden butt end of an AK-47. I was then hit in the

head and punched in the eye. All my self-preservation instincts were to not fight back and

to be limp and completely complacent.

We were tied up and taken to a loyalist safe house in Brega. Later that afternoon the three

of us were transported to Sirte and two days later to Tripoli, where we spent weeks lan-

guishing in a series of prisons. We were never beaten again. We were generally well fed.

But we didnt get to make a phone call home for almost 20 days and didnt see a western

official for almost a month. And when these privileges finally did come they were largely

due to a tremendous amount of international advocacy on our behalf.

As I have indicated, I have taken a lot of time to reflect on the decisions that led me to the

front lines on that day, the mistakes we made that led to the loss of a colleague who was

senselessly gunned down, and how we were able to improve our chances once in captivity.

Many journalists have a desire to get to the frontlines to experience what the feeling and

taste of the conflict is really like. For some of us who cover conflict, this is an undeniablyalluring part of the job, but the front can carry an attraction that is perhaps more of an

infatuation with taking risks than with real journalism. My decision making that day was

clouded by an adrenalin-influenced desire to be there first, to push the limits further.


34/7234

I had some success covering the frontlines, and I wanted more of that. And in

aggressively pursuing that desire, I failed to more carefully assess the terrain. That was the

key mistake.

Anton Hammerl was shot with an AK burst and quickly bled to death. Anyone of us could

have been him. To what end were we in the line of fire that day? The answer is unclear.

Ive learned in the hardest way that a journalist has to give great thought to their risk

assessment. You have to ask yourself what facts and impressions need to be verified

with ones own eyes and what can be verified by other means, if you take one step back.

Do I need to go down that unknown road, past that last checkpoint? Or, can I wait to

gather the accounts of those soldiers and civilians who just went down it and are now

retreating back?

I was doing a lot of video, so my impatience and competitive desire to get frontline

footage weighed over what would have been a better plan. In this specific scenario, we

should have developed relationships with a more organized rebel group, who could have

provided real protection and access.

But there are other lessons worth sharing. Some of the steps we took after we were cap-

tured were the rights one and, I believe, helpful in gaining our release. While in captivity,

certain, common sense behaviors probably helped our chances to eventually be freed at a

time when NATO was bombing the capital where we were being held.

First, we always told the truth and were consistent with the facts. When youre captured

by one of these regimes you are at the mercy of interrogators and a secret police appara-

tus that has been disappearing people for decades. We told the truth to our interrogators

down to the number of stories wed filed.

At every step of the way we tried to be compliant and friendly with guards, drivers, inter-

rogators and judges. We tried to be gracious and calm. We made real friends with fellowLibyan prisoners who shared with us extra food, cigarettes and clothes. Im convinced if

we werent freed by the tremendous efforts of our news organizations, NGOs and inter-

national groups, my fellow Libyan prisoners would have gotten us out when Tripoli fell.

At one point I refused to do a second interview on State TV. Some might say that on one

level it was a mistake. That is, State TV footage would have given my family and colleagues

further proof that I was alive and doing fine. But there is another argument that refusing

a request at some point in your captivity draws the line for your captors of how much theycan exploit you. You have to know when to stick up for yourself and do it as politely but

firmly as possible.


35/7235

Above all, I had to find a way to keep up hope and strength. I prayed as much as I could,

kneeling with my fellow captives whether they were American Christians or Libyan Mus-

lims. The act of collective prayer and building faith in a higher power to guide me through

the situation I could not control was perhaps the critical piece to maintaining the right

attitude to locked prison cells and kangaroo courts. My patience and my faith that Id be

released was all I could control.

I used to be the one who went down the road. I took it as a challenge, but after almost los-

ing my own life and spending 44 days in captivity, I now ask myself very carefully, as one

colleague put it to what end?

Now that Im back working in Libya, I still assume some risks. Just being here is a risk. But

I have incorporated greater safeguards like morning and evening check ins with editors. (I

should note that this requirement was actually spelled out in GlobalPosts Field Guide andI should have lived up to the requirement with my editor more carefully.)

And now more than anything, I have a sense that no short-term news story that involves

an adrenaline fix is worth the pain of what could happen if you dont make that decision

to step back and assess the situation before moving forward.

(James Foley returned to the field to cover the conflict in Syria and on Thanksgiving Day, 2012, he

was once again detained. It is not known who is captors are, but as of this publishing, GlobalPost

has gathered information that indicates Foley is likely being held by the Syrian military. We have

kept his previous essay on a bad day in Libya and CEO Philip S. Balbonis essay on bringing him

home as part of the historical record of lessons learned at GlobalPost.)


36/7236

Bringing Jim Foley Home

By Philip S. BalboniCEO and Co-Founder of GlobalPost

BOSTON It was dawn April 7, 2011 when we got the first word into our office. An email

had landed from Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, saying that he had been in-

formed that our correspondent James Foley in Libya may be missing.

I was worried, but unsure whether Foley was just out of touch or really in trouble. By mid-

morning, after a conference call with Peter in Switzerland, and after reading emails from

journalist colleagues on the ground in Libya, we knew Foley was in fact detained. Yet we

had no idea where he was or in what condition.

One of the most important lessons from GlobalPosts experience in gaining Jim Foleys re-

lease was to reach out early and often to other news organizations and to the foreign cor-

respondent community. Their knowledge and experience was of incalculable importance.

Human Rights Watch had worked closely in helping the New York Times, which had gone

through a similar experience several weeks earlier with four of their journalists held cap-

tive in Libya and then released. So one of my first calls that morning was to Susan Chira,the Foreign Editor of the New York Times, now an Assistant Managing Editor. Susan re-

sponded immediately and offered to help in any way she could. She also put me in touch

with David McCraw, a senior New York Times attorney who had led the negotiations to

free his colleagues. He called that afternoon from Beijing where he was on a business trip

and he offered valuable advice that helped me gain some momentum. David Kirkpatrick

and C.J. Chivers, two Times reporters on the ground in Libya, were also enormously help-

ful in those early days of Jims captivity, as were so many other journalists throughout the

43 day rescue operation.

Among the many lessons we learned in the coming weeks, the first came instinctively: Its

critically important that a single person lead the recovery effort, and all communication

must flow through this individual. Careful coordination of information from the field,

from diplomatic and NGO sources, from other news organizations, and from within your

own news organization must be filtered through one individual and then spun back out

where it is most needed. Any breakdown in the communication channel could have seri-

ous consequences for the overall recovery effort.

Even though its not the role a CEO would normally play, I took on that responsibility

for GlobalPost . I had 46 years in journalism to guide me and help from an experienced


37/7237

editing team that had worked in conflict zones as we tried our best to make the right deci-

sions. It was also abundantly clear to me that GlobalPosts reputation was on the line. As

a young news organization that relied almost completely on free-lance reporters all over

the world we could not fail in our responsibility to bring Jim Foley home safely.

Its important to note right here that Foley was not an employee of GlobalPost in theclassic sense of the term. We also hadnt assigned him to cover the Libyan conflict. Jim is

a freelancer who had reported for us from Afghanistan in 2010 and had produced some

outstanding work including a video report on a firefight in Kunar Province,

Afghanistan that was broadcast on both the CBS Evening News and the PBS NewsHour

in September of that year. Jim had then briefly worked for another news organization

before deciding to travel on his own to Libya. We were covering the conflict with one of

our other correspondents, Nicole Sobecki, who was based in Istanbul. Nicole had traveled

to Benghazi as the Libyan conflict heated up. When she decided to leave the country, Jim

Foley became our go-to person on the ground.

From the morning of April 7th until Foley crossed the Libyan border into Tunisia on May

19th, I felt we at GlobalPost had no more important mission than securing his freedom.

Those 43 days were intense as we worked literally around the clock, calling and emailing

everyone who might help officials at the US State Department, the Turkish Embassy

(the Turks were representing US interests in Tripoli), Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafis

son Saif, members of Congress, and literally scores of others.

Jim was taken prisoner with Clare Gillis, another American free-lance reporter writing

for USA Today and the Atlantic Monthly, Manu Brabo, a Spanish photographer working

for the European Press Association (EPA), and Anton Hammerl, a South African journal-

ist. Within days, we had created a Crisis Management Team (CMT) with our colleagues

at USA Today and the Atlantic. We hired a top-notch international security consulting

agency in London, AKE Group, staffed with ex-British Secret Air Service officers, and by

Monday of the following week we had a team on the ground in Tunisia.

I also dispatched our Cairo correspondent Jon Jensen to Tunis to be our eyes and ears on

the ground. He linked up with the AKE team in the coastal town of Djerba which was the

closest large settlement to the Libyan border. Together, they spent weeks plotting strategy

with the CMT, scouting the border post and the roads to and from it, preparing medical

supplies, and working local diplomatic angles to gather intelligence on what was happen-

ing in Tripoli and with our journalists.

The CMT consisted of the three principals from GlobalPost, USA Today and the Atlantic,

the AKE team leader in Tunisia, our Jon Jensen and, depending on the days events, other


38/7238

individuals from the three news organizations. The CMT met more than 40 times in con-

ference calls that would often last for hours and that included weekends. Some days there

were multiple calls.

The role played by AKE, while enormously expensive, was also critically important. They

brought expertise in how to respond to a hostage situation, intelligence gathering, fieldoperations, and the medical and psychological needs of individuals who have been held

captive for long periods of time expertise that few of us in journalism possess to any

meaningful degree. In our own case, having trained professionals on the ground close to

the Libyan border, and working in close concert with Jensen who is a fluent Arabic speaker

and highly knowledgeable about the region and culture, proved to be invaluable.

Another vitally important factor was staying close to the family. I was in daily contact

with Jim Foleys mother, Diane, his father John, and his brother, Michael. I grew to have

great respect and affection for the entire Foley family their courage and decency was

an inspiration to me and to my colleagues and it deepened our commitment to bring Jim

home as soon as possible.

Finally, its essential to have a strong media and public relations strategy so that you

can keep the story in the news and not allow the world to forget about his situation.

We worked very hard, as did the Foley and Gillis families, to mobilize public support for

Jims release, staging events and communicating constantly with local and national me-

dia. There was tremendous interest in our journalists plight and the media were very

supportive in providing coverage throughout the long ordeal.

Jim, Clare and Manu were released from captivity on May 18th in the early evening in

Tripoli -- midday in Boston. Cheers went up in our newsroom. That night I broke open

the best bottle of single malt Scotch in my possession and every member of the GlobalPost

team shared a toast to Jim and his colleagues.

The only dark cloud on the horizon was the absence of Anton Hammerl. In all of those

long weeks of captivity, we had not given up hope that Anton was okay even though he

was never sighted and, unlike the other journalists, he was never given a phone call home

to his family.

The next day, representatives of the Hungarian Embassy drove the four journalists to the

border crossing at Raj Adir. They arrived after dark and our team was there to meet them.

They spent the night at a hotel in Djerba, our staging area for the past 6 weeks. It was thenthat the secret Jim and Clare and Manu had kept all those long days in captivity came out.

Anton had been shot to death by the Gaddafi fighters on that first day of capture, April

5th. They had to watch Anton bleeding to death by the side of the road as the government

fighters took them away an image that will stay in their minds forever.


39/7239

Jim and Clare were home in America the very next day and their families were exultant.

We too were enormously grateful and proud that one of the most important chapters in

the short history of GlobalPost was closing on such a happy and successful note. We were

tired but we were infinitely wiser and we felt ready to take on any new challenge that

might come in the months ahead.


40/7240

Freelancers Primer on

Narrative Nonfiction in War Zones

By Sebastian Junger

GlobalPost editor-at-large

My rule is that you need to be able to carry everything you have for a mile. By that I mean

that you can put everything youre bringing on assignment into a bag with straps, sling

it over your shoulder and walk for a mile without any problem. Im not sure why I feel so

strongly about this except that it makes you leave at home things you dont really need,

and it enables you to operate independently of anything or anyone in whatever foreign

country youve just flow into.

So what do I put in this bag? First of all, I feel I should be able to sleep outside without too

much hardship. That means carrying a sleeping bag in colder climates and some sort of

mosquito-net tent in warmer ones. That frees me from making my plans around hotels,

towns and transportation. I bring a satellite phone for the same reason (the Iridium that I

use charges $1.49 a minute anywhere in the world, which is a lot cheaper than local cell or

landline.) I bring four or five reporters notebooks, a box of fast-writing Uniball pens and

a micro-cassette recorder. Recently Ive also started traveling with a mini-DV camcorder

that is small enough to always keep with me. I filmed a mortar attack on a refugee camp

in Liberia because I had a camera with me, which later allowed me to support the publica-

tion of my article with video images that were broadcast on television. That kind of media

convergence is increasingly important in todays market.

In many countries people dont drink coffee, which I personally feel a deep, almost desper-

ate need for in the morning, so I always travel with a (plastic) jar of crystals. I bring a stand-

ard medical kit that has been beefed up with sterile needles, a military tourniquet and an

Israeli compression bandage. I almost always come down with dysentery on my trips, so

a stomach medicine is a must, as are re-hydration salts, antibiotics, pain killers and in

the tropics anti-malarials. If I am going to be embedded with a Western military I bring

a bulletproof vest and helmet; otherwise I leave it at home (they cost a thousand dollars

and in some countries youll lose them at the first checkpoint.) I always have a flashlight,

a folding knife and a cigarette lighter in my pocket. Never bring a compass, binoculars or

two-way radios to a civil war; inevitably someone is going to accuse you of being a spy,and items like that could lead to an extremely dangerous situation. If you bring a map,

make sure there are no contour lines on it, for the same reason. I bring a copy of one of the


41/7241

books Ive written, just to prove that Im truly an author. Many countries including the

United States have used journalism as a cover for espionage, so indignantly declaring

that youre a working member of the press wont help you much.

One idea youre going to find yourself dragging from one war zone to another is the as-

sumption that risk and good journalism go hand-in-hand, and that if youre not gettingshot at, youre not getting the story. Thats wrong, though not utterly, absolutely wrong;

as with most things, its a matter of degree. Theres not much to take notes on when

youre under fire except what the rocks look like that youre hiding behind. That said, risk

is incredibly attention-getting: A little fear can bring a story into focus that you might

otherwise be falling asleep on. Likewise for the reader, a story where the reporter is clearly

scared is a story where the reader finds himself invested in the outcome and on the edge of

his seat. Fear is one of those primary emotions - along with hate and love and shame - that

organize human society and propels us through our lives. When those emotions show up,

everyone in the room notices and pays attention.

No good journalist, however, would ever incur risk for the hell of it or for the narrative

drama of it. That would be terrifically indulgent and would entirely miss the point of good

journalism, which is to report on the world while simultaneously keeping ones ego to a

minimum. But that same lack of ego also means that neither should one value ones life

absolutely. There are stories - the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, for example - that are so

terrible and important that it is acceptable to run risks in order to get the word out. Re-

porters died covering the siege of Sarajevo, and Im sure they died terrified. Its not a nice

feeling, that terror, but sometimes its an unavoidable part of an important job. When the

time comes to write the story, however, you have to make sure that your experience illu-

minates the experience without become the central point of it. You are not starring in an

action movie, in other words.

My first step, after I get home from assignment, is to go through my notes and interviews

with a red pen and underline the good stuff. Then I write a sort of inventory of what I

have including whatever historical or geopolitical material might be relevant. Once I

have that, I start chunking out the basic structure of the piece. I try to alternate between

scenes and sections. Scenes convey information indirectly but compellingly: A con-

versation at a bar that is utterly anecdotal, but that poignantly illuminates the tragedy of

sex trafficking. Sections impart information directly but are boring as hell: A brief history

of the Eastern European country where sex trafficking happens. For obvious reasons, the

sections require a lot of work and a lot of journalistic restraint. Being a good writer usu-

ally just means knowing when your reader has started to get bored.


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So, structure: You start with a scene, get the reader to care about the characters (or, oc-

casionally, the writer), then give then give them whatever information they need in order

to make sense of the scene they just read. Without the information, the scenes are just

action-movie theatrics; without the scenes, though, the information is academic and

uninteresting. Rhythm is everything, particularly with the drier material. People will read

anything if the rhythm within the sentences is right. The entire piece has a rhythm too;

it ebbs and flows with tension, and you have to exploit that to keep people reading. The

quiet stretches are as necessary as the dynamic ones, and the interplay between the two is

one of the things people mean when they talk about structure. A lot of things in life have

the same structure that a compelling piece of writing has: An attention getting start, a lull,

a gradual build to a great height and then a careful dismantling. Careers, romances, lives,

nations often follow that same basic template. Its not rocket science, but you do have to

pay attention.

Youll wind up with a piece that thoroughly investigates a small - probably tragic - side-

show in the great, ongoing drama of the world. If that is all you do, youll have accom-

plished one of the most important roles of a free press, which is the wide dissemination

of information. Occasionally, though, youll have written something that uses a particular

story to illuminate a greater truth about the world, about humanity, about hope or suffer-

ing or loss. Great journalism doesnt require that, but it occasionally attains it. Youll know

if when it happens. It is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful and intoxicating feelings

one can have.

(Sebastian Junger is a now a member of GlobalPosts Board of Editorial Advisors. He is also The

New York Times best-selling author of WAR, which documents the experience of a single platoon

in one of the most violent pockets of fighting in Afghanistan. He also co-directed with Tim Heth-

erington the documentary Restrepo, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. On April 20,

Tim Hetherington was killed while reporting in Libya.)


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A Half Century of Covering Foreign Wars

By HDS GreenwayGlobalPosts Worldview columnist.

To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and

the gestures of the proud; to see strange things machines, armies, multitudes, shadows

in the jungle and on the moon to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden be-

hind walls and within rooms; things dangerous to come toto see and be amazed; to see

and be instructed.

These were the words Henry Luce used for his 1936 prospectus for a new publication he

was starting: Life Magazine. His words capsulized all the romance, adventure and dare

I say it glamor of a foreign correspondents life.

I would not diminish the excitement covering Washington, or city hall, or the tumultuous

world of sport. But to see the world; eyewitness to great events; to see things thousands

of miles away; things dangerous to come to, that is the provenance of reporting on coun-

tries and cultures other than your own.

And what a tradition it is: William Russell reporting from the Crimea, scene of the famouscharge of the Light Brigade, G.W. Steevens, whose book With Kitchener to Khartoum is

here in my library as I write, Richard Harding Davis, whose dispatches from Cuba in the

Spanish American War enhanced his already considerable reputation, Ernie Pyle, who

died in the Pacific covering the GIs he loved, David Halberstam,in Vietnam, Filkins (Dex-

ter) of Fallujah, and on and on.

None can say it isnt important work. Here stands America, still the greatest power on

earth, deeply involved in two wars, and nuclear issues with Iran and North Korea, anemerging China, and a sullen Russia, with any number of problems with those who favor

us, and those who hate us, and everybody in between. How can a democracy make intel-

ligent decisions if it is not informed whats going on beyond its borders? Without foreign

correspondents the giant is blind, barging into the furniture in an unfamiliar room.

America, blessed as it is, has not experienced war on its soil since the last of the Apaches

were suppressed a century ago. Nor have Americans experienced great famines, revolu-

tions, devastating poverty, and dictatorship, too often the provenance of the foreign cor-respondent.


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The best of them have a knack of digging deep into the countries and cultures they are liv-

ing in without ever losing their sense of gee whiz, the ability to bring it all fresh and new

to their readers, never losing a sense of for whom they write. There is no substitute for liv-

ing in another country, when your down time, the chance meetings the conversations, all

turn out to be grist for the mill of understanding.

I began my life in the news trade as a young ensign in the Navy, tasked with putting out a

fleet newspaper. It was the late fifties, and the Algerian war raged as France tried to hang

on to empire. I slipped a short essay into the paper about Algeria, only to hear from the

ships executive officer.

While the Algeria article may have been informative he said, it read like a political science

text book. What the fleet wanted was names, scandal, political dirt, murder rape, love

nests. His favorite lead from the old New York World was: Hell, said the duchess, let goof my leg.

My first lesson in journalism: you have to captivate the reader not bore, or preach to him.

I joined Henry Luces empire in the early sixties, when Time and Life were at their zenith,

with bureaus, stringers, and correspondents in all the strange places of the planet. Life

Magazine was still then bigger than television, and had fulfilled all that Luces prospectus

had asked of it. Then it was the Washington Post, and then the Boston Globe, where I was

asked to build up a foreign news service with bureaus in strategic places all to be torn

down when newspapers began to relinquish their mission to inform, which they had al-

ways seen as a public service as well as a business.

I look back, now, on the fifty years since Commander J.T. Straker, US Navy, brought me up

sharp for being pretentious, and I would change very few of those years.

I watched the great hemorrhaging of refugees from East Bengal, during the painful birth

of Bangladesh, the faces of the poor in long columns you could spot from the vultures inthe sky, waiting to compete with dogs to eat the dead. I watched the gestures of the proud

when Anwar Sadat changed history in Jerusalem.

I have seen inspiring things, such as the wall coming down in Berlin, and things danger-

ous to come to, despairing countries, burning towns, guerrillas and brigands, and shad-

ows in the jungle where enemies lay in ambush. I have been shot, teargassed, and thrown

in jail. I have interviewed the captains and the kings, a couple of queens, and more than a

few knaves. I have been amazed, as well as instructed, and sometimes, I like to think, it hashelped someone understand something about things thousands of miles away.


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Lessons Learned in Helmand

By Jean MacKenzieGlobalPost Afghanistan Bureau Chief

But we have to do the story. If we ignore this incident, then the people who did this will

never be punished. It is our job.

There is nothing worse than hearing your own words coming back to you.

The speaker is an Afghan journalist, well call him Aziz, a young man of 20 who has barely

completed high school. He has just broken a story that no one, including me, wanted him

to do. Having heard that foreign forces had gone on a rampage in southern Helmand, Azizgained access to a closed ward in a private hospital in Lashkar Gah by posing as a family

member. Once in, he proceeded to interview a man whose throat had been slit, allegedly

by foreign troops. He was now ready to go public, and I had been fighting him every step

of the way.

The story was compelling, the sources convincing. But the subject matter was just too ex-

plosive. It was the kind of piece that could easily feed into Taliban propaganda, and create

even greater difficulties for the beleaguered foreign forces in southern Afghanistan.

I had been in Helmand for about a year, conducting workshops for local journalists and

journalist wannabes. Helmand, capital of the worlds opium poppy industry and center

of the Taliban insurgency, is one of the more challenging assignments Ive had in a career

that has spanned several decades and more than a few continents. But the response from a

small but dedicated group of Afghans had surprised and delighted me.

Training reporters can be a frustrating and largely thankless task. Afghanistan is littered

with the messy remains of two-week workshops in which seasoned hacks try to boil down

the experiences of a lifetime into easily digestible sound bites.

Not surprisingly, this often results in a group of half-formed journalists with fancy cer-

tificates and heads full of nonsense. But when taken seriously by trainer and trainee, the

relationship can prove immensely beneficial to both sides.

I had become a journalist the old-fashioned way, absorbing the rules from editors and col-

leagues, while adding a large dollop of instinct to my seat-of-the-pants education. Now,

for the first time, I had to try and explain my methods to a group of eager but untutored

reporters, most of whom had limited schooling and a drastically truncated world view.


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Difficulties arose when I had to answer questions. This is Afghanistan, and a war zone,

and the answers mattered.

Can one be a real journalist while working for the government? How far do we go to get

a story? Or the most common question in the insurgency-wracked south: Do the princi-

ples of fairness, balance, and impartiality extend to the Taliban?

In class we may insist that the trainees find and interview Taliban to give substance to a

piece on civilian casualties or school burnings. But the local government, as well as the

international forces, may then grumble that the

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