Report at Your Own Risk

The ordeal of Amanda Lindhout, the “freelance journalist” recently released after 15 months of kidnapped captivity in Somalia, underlines how journalism, and/or dangers faced, have changed in recent times.

The question being asked about the 28-year-old Alberta woman, is whether she was a gutsy reporter or a naïve thrill-seeker. Likely she is both. A case can be made that both descriptions apply in varying degrees to all reporters who venture into dangerous areas.

Amanda’s case is different because, essentially, she had no back-up, no steady employer to go to bat for her should she run into trouble, no safety net, imprecise as safety nets are. And she was nuts to venture into Somalia.

These days no journalist is absolutely safe from being kidnapped or beheaded by captors. New York Times, CBC, AP, Wall Street Journal, and other influential media have not been a guarantee that their reporters won’t be kidnapped, harassed, or murdered.

It wasn’t always this way.

For some 15 years until around 1971, I went to various wars, revolutions, crises around the world for the Toronto Telegram, with no backup or support system, and never felt I might be kidnapped. In those days, freelance journalists with no employer (and often no employment) were common – and often a pain in the butt.

These freelancers tended to feed off journalists who were there for their newspapers or agencies. Freelancers seemed anxious to have their photographs taken on site to establish credentials that would entice small newspapers to publish their accounts.

Today, in some dangerous places, journalists have to hire fixers, drivers, even bodyguards – all of which require an employer willing to invest more money than independent newspapers want or can afford. The average freelancers can’t afford such an outlay.

Some stories are impossible to cover by freelancers.

The 1960s were more conducive to freelancers like Amanda Lindhout. In the Algerian civil war – France vs. Algerian French vs Algerian nationalists – independents could thrive. The danger was daily assassinations; a concern of journalists was being assassinated in error.

It was similar in the Congo after independence, when there was no government. Journalists of all stripes prowled and dug for facts, uneasy only about falling into the hands of the wrong tribal faction.

Vietnam was loaded with freelancers, some of whom could wheedle concessions from the U.S. military, and who could more or less safely risk venturing into the countryside. No support system was necessary.

When the marines landed in Beirut in 1958, independent journalists vied with agencies and flourished. Even in Baghdad when the king was assassinated and people were hanged from lampposts, chaos was such that journalists with no back-up or background could flourish with some safety.

I got into Angola when journalists were being expelled during one of the Portuguese crackdowns. After five days of poking around I was arrested, briefly jailed, and dispatched to Mozambique where I was then expelled to South Africa. But no physical or mental damage.

Covering the Biafran war, the world began to change. Like today, you had to choose sides. I was with the Biafrans when they briefly captured the town of Owerri. If Nigerians caught me, I’d have been shot as a mercenary.  A month later, I was at the same battle with Nigerian forces, and if caught by Biafrans I’d again have been killed as a mercenary.

In more recent times, one could write sensibly about the civil war in Angola by being sponsored by UNITA rebels of Jonas Savimbi, who would protect you. If caught by the ruling MPLA, you’d be shot. No freelancers.

Eritrea’s war against Ethiopia was similar – with EPLF forces you were protected, unless the Ethiopians caught you. You had a support system.

In Afghanistan today, as in the Iraq war, a journalist has some protection if embedded with the U.S. or Canadian military. Otherwise you depend on the Taliban or no one. Too dangerous for most.

Freelance writing is an honorable craft, but it’s now more realistic for books than for journalism. The lone writer can probe the Amazon, or the secrets of New Guinea, or mysteries of Vietnam, where kidnapping for ransom is rare. He/she is breaking trail.

But stay away from the predator places unless you have a plan, know what you are doing, have a back-up system, have lots of money, and have those who will raise hell to rescue should things go wrong.

Such places include Somalia, Pakistan, Iran, and any poor country at war against its government.