An unusual event, with unusual hosts, sponsors and guests — and some pictures, which will be etched in one's memory for time immemorial.
BBC World had a special screening of Jeremy Bowen on the Front Line, a 50-minute documentary on war correspondents (a designation BBC's South Asia’s Bureau Editor Paul Danahar states does not exist) by a war correspondent. The event was sponsored by Skoda, whose recent kiss-and-love-my-Skoda campaign is the talk of the ad world.
Last week, CNBC's Storyboard, along with DNA, hosted a panel discussion on the impact of the media wars on the consumer. One wished, then, that the guest and participation list had included senior personnel from competing media companies. This time, one wishes BBC or Skoda had invited editors, marketing heads and correspondents from Indian news channels, so that they, too, could have walked away with the memories that we have. Not just the memories of Jeremy Bowen's documentary; the introduction by Danahar was more than worth a listen. While Bowen's film concentrated on war, Danahar shared some gems on the complexity of news in today's highly competitive multi-channel environment. A lot of today's channels (not just Indian), he felt, "seem to live by the unwritten motto ‘never wrong for long’, while the BBC "wants to be the first, but we insist on being right".
Danahar closed with comments on Bowen's film: "It's frank and revealing and doesn't pull any punches. It's what BBC World means by ‘putting news first’. It tears away the image of the glamorous war correspondent to show things as they are — people with flaws, people who've ruined their lives. I think after this, you'll never watch another news report the same way again."
On August 23, the BBC dealt with all the questions that go through our heads while watching correspondents report from the war zones. Paul Danahar, BBC South Asia's Editor, made the opening speech and spoke about the life of a war correspondent. "I've covered all sorts of wars — from Kargil to the Congo. They're all different but they all have one thing in common, they kill people. During the last war in Iraq, two of my colleagues had their stomachs stuffed with bed sheets as we were trying to stop them from bleeding to death after an American tank fired on our hotel. We failed — and they died. A friend of mine from Reuters also lost most of his right thigh. I have anecdotes from my time as a war correspondent; he has a crutch," he mused.
"The truth is: the BBC doesn't actually have 'war correspondents'. It's not something you can apply for. There's no advertisement in the paper. That's because the BBC doesn't want to just parachute people into conflicts. The BBC has more foreign correspondents around the world than anyone else — and maintains them at high expenses even though there is a 'big price' to pay. We keep them there so that they learn about where they live, understand the culture of the country they report on; make it their home," Danahar cited.
Speaking about the BBC's 'Jeremy Bowen on the Front Line' documentary, Danahar said, "Bowen is one of the BBC's most experienced correspondents. In this documentary, he is brutally honest about what motivated him to cover wars; how his motivation changed; and what war reporting does to the people who stick to it for too long. Jeremy Bowen stayed in the Middle East for many years and he didn't just fly in from London when things got bad. Like many of the 2,000 BBC journalists around the world, he reported from where he lived. Sometimes, that particular country was ravaged by war and they carry on reporting. The 'war correspondent' doesn't replace them; their experience means their reports have more in context, more understanding and don't descend into a simple body count."
Elaborating on the sombre aspect during the prelude to the screening, Danahar added, "Many of the people, who cover wars for the BBC, do it because the conflict ends up on their doorstep. They don't go out looking for danger. When you start this job, you hear stories about people who've died covering wars. Then, after a while, people, you vaguely know, start getting killed. Later, it's the people you've worked with. Then one day, it's one of your best friends. And then, the little voice inside you — that's been telling you for years that it'll never happen to you — starts to ring hollow."
To read the entire article, buy a copy of Impact Advertising and Marketing magazine dated August 29-September 4
