Jornalismo de guerra:
Silence...: On several right-wing blogs, including the National Review Online, a comment I made about Hizbullah?s security measures and their ?hassling? of journalists has been taken to mean that we?re all Hizbullah stooges here ? or something. This is not true.
What I wrote was this: ?To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I?m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist?s passport, and they?ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.?
Let?s set aside that the Lebanese Internal Security also has photocopies of our passports. The reason for the hassling and the threat was that a reporter had filmed or described either a launching site or Hizbullah positions. (I?m not sure which.) To the best of my knowledge, that?s been the extent of the hassling. I?m going to get in trouble for this, but I think it?s a reasonable restriction. This is the exact same restrictions placed on journalists by the Israeli army and by the Americans in Iraq. I don?t think threatening journalists is cool at all, and it certainly doesn?t endear me to them, but that has been the extent of Hizbullah?s interference in our coverage.
Why do I think it?s a reasonable restriction? Because I believe in staying neutral as a journalist. It?s not my job to help out the IDF or Hizbullah. Just as I wouldn?t give away Israeli positions, I won?t give away Hizbullah positions. By doing either, I threaten the neutrality that we depend on here for our access and our credibility. Morally, I also think by giving away positions that could get people killed, whether they?re Hizbullah or IDF soldiers, is to aid in the possibly killing of another human being. I?m really not comfortable doing that.
This is mostly academic, however. Most of the time, we never even see Hizbullah. They keep a very low profile and only come out when something happens, such as a bombing. Then the boys with the walkie-talkies appear and wave their arms and yell and generally push the reporters back until the firemen come in and put out the fire or recover bodies. That?s been the extent of my dealings with Hizbullah, and it?s been the case with probably 95 percent of the reporters here, too.
I do not have a Hizbullah ?press pass,? as one commenter suggested. They do not hold my passport (they have a photocopy, presumably.) I have neither sought nor received permission from any Hizbullah people to cover anything. No one has prevented me from covering anything.
