On young and inexperienced freelancers in conflict zones

A slightly-altered version of this article was first published at Journalism.co.uk on November 17, 2011. It was inspired by conversations on Twitter with Rob Crilly, Pakistan correspondent for the Telegraph, and Neal Mann, a journalist and digital news editor for Sky News.

There’s currently a discussion underway debating issues related to young and inexperienced journalists reporting from conflict zones.

The conversation started on Twitter during the battles for Benghazi and Tripoli, picked up when it landed on the New York Times Lens photography blog, and now continues at Guardian.co.uk, on personal websites such as that of Pakistan correspondent Rob Crilly, and, of course, on Twitter.

Readers are encouraged to view those articles before continuing.

Now, writing as a journalist with a few years experience but nothing in conflict zones, I’ll weigh in.

No doubt, this year has seen a flood of young reporters flock to career opportunities created by the ongoing Arab Spring.

“There are an unbelievable number of young kids running around Libya with cameras,” remarked Tim Hetherington, just months before he and Chris Hondros were killed in Misrata, Libya.

Clearly, veteran conflict photographers have every right and reason to express alarm.

“The idea of a 20-year-old running around Libya with a cellphone and no flak jacket is, frankly, quite disturbing,” wrote Michael Kamber in the Times piece linked above. “It conveys a disrespect for the profession and for the civilians involved and it incorporates a certain callousness, at least in my opinion, toward the gods of war.”

More on point, it’s not just these young journalists’ lives that are increasingly put at heightened levels of risk.

The circumstances of conflicts often force journalists and photographers to move in groups. That means that if one goes down, it’s a problem for all. It also means that you’d like the guy or girl next to you to know how to keep pressure on a bullet wound –veterans likely will know how to do that; first-timers will be prone to panic.

But let’s flip the coin and also place all of this in context.

The glory days of Phnom Penh’s foreign correspondent’s club are over.

With the slow collapse of print coupled with the global recession, media corporations have retracted international operations as fast as they can get the “sold” signs up on foreign bureaus.

Moreover, it is very expensive for a media outlet to send staff reporters abroad and into conflict zones.

Even before the bill for the plane ticket arrives, there’s a regular salary, benefits, insurance, a possible severance package, et cetera. Then, during a war, a staffer’s employer must pay for food and board for as long as the violence keeps it worth it.

And so opportunities for young people to enter the field of journalism and work their way up to conflict reporting largely no longer exist.

Yet news continues to be written, broadcast, photographed, and televised. So where is it coming from?

Increasingly, I believe, it is produced by the sort of young and inexperienced journalist that operates with “a cellphone and no flak jacket.” I have no analytical evidence to support this hypothesis. But even Joao Silva, a celebrated photojournalist at the top of the game, wasn’t given a staff position until he sent back pictures of his own legs blown off (literally).

If a freelancer is on the ground with a story and willing to serve it up for a buyer’s price, the realities of today’s media economy means that the deal will make sense for all involved.

There are therefore two big lessons that young journalists can take from Libya.

One, is that journalists and photographers can die. Libya killed 12, and that was a short war. (Many more were kidnapped or otherwise held captive –35 in a single episode at the now-infamous Rixos Hotel.)

But the second is that supply meets demand.  With media corporations increasingly reluctant to pay for staff positions abroad, independent freelancers can step in and fill the gaps.

Furthermore, given the nature of the work that we are talking about –transient, unstable, and detrimental to family life– the majority of those willing to practice conflict reporting will likely be young. (On a related note, here, we must admit that a significant draw for conflict media is adrenaline. Veteran correspondents such a Greg Marinovich, Chris Hedges, and Anthony Loyd, have written on this topic at length, and so I’ll direct readers interested in discussing it further to those works.)

So how fair is it to denigrate young reporter as undeserving of the opportunity to operate in conflict zones?

Veterans’ concerns for both junior reporters’ safety and their own are absolutely valid. But with big media houses willing to pay independents, and given that there are a decreasing number of doors through which an aspiring conflict journalist can enter the game, how much of the blame can you lay on the rookies?

A major point that I feel has largely been left out of the conversation, is that we are talking about a situation created by media corporations’ dwindling budgets and a subsequent proliferation of unscrupulous freelance arrangements (as well as decreases in the costs and complexities of equipment).

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll note that I don’t have a publisher ready to pay me for a posting on the border of north and South Sudan. But if I were to get there on my own, I do have the contact info for editors that would take my stories.

If inexperienced journalists can be blamed for increasing the overall risk for reporters working in conflict zones, we can find equal fault with the outlets willing to pay them.

A slightly-altered version of this article was first published at Journalism.co.uk on November 17, 2011. It was inspired by conversations on Twitter with Rob Crilly, Pakistan correspondent for the Telegraph, and Neal Mann, a journalist and digital news editor for Sky News.