Reporting Outside the Wire

Soldiers do not like to salute civilians. At a solemn ramp ceremony last week held at Kandahar airport, Afghanistan, 4000 soldiers saluted as five coffins were carried on-board an airplane that was to fly them home to Canada.  And for the first time in this war, one of those coffins – the  lead coffin – held the remains of a Canadian war correspondent.  Michelle Lang.

How it has changed.

In 2002, Canada entered a conflict in Afghanistan; the word ‘war’ was not used.  Eight hundred soldiers from Edmonton, the Third Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, with elements of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), under NATO command, were sent to a small single runway airport outside the city of Kandahar.

Very quickly, it was quite obvious that Canada was at war, and the politicians were forced to use the feared ‘W’ word.  No longer could they use ‘peacekeeping’ or ‘peacemaking.’  We were at war.

The journalistic rules of the day were that if you travelled with or stayed with the Canadian Military, you were tainted. The major networks insisted that their journalists travelled independently, with fixers and their own vehicles. That way, in their minds, ‘the truth’ could be told.  As well, the few small newspapers and independents who didn’t ask permission and went to cover the story were held at bay: It was easy to accuse these independents of producing propaganda – since they’d been traveling with and living with the military, their stories would be biased in favor of the military.

It was quite obvious that there was no trust.  The media certainly did not trust the military and the feeling was mutual.

The outcome was that Canadians had no idea what was happening.

As the costs escalated, and the dangers increased, a new word was introduced into journalism:  Embedding – meaning that the media would live and travel with the soldiers.  The howls of outrage came from the selected few who had the backing and unlimited resources of networks.  With this embedding option, a war was no longer the exclusive property of those who could afford to cover it.

Over the last few years it has been slowly changing.  Many good journalists have had the opportunity to embed.  Journalists such as Christie Blatchford, known for eating nails and spitting rust, went to Afghanistan on three different occasions.  In her book, Fifteen Days, she wrote simply, “It was a life-changing experience.”  Her respect for the young Canadian soldiers is unquestionable.

From this same cut, a young 34 year-old journalist, Michelle Lang from Calgary, Alberta arrived in Afghanistan.  It was her first war.

Unfortunately, the embedding process had become – to some journalists – a career check in the box situation.  They would remain behind the wire, live on the huge NATO base that is Kandahar Airfield (KAF).  Some would count on their fixers:  giving them cameras and sending them out daily to get pictures and stories; the reporter would brand the video with their voices and write the stories for broadcast on Canadian televisions – all created without ever having left the safety of the Kandahar base.

This was not Michelle Lang’s way of doing things.   Although recently engaged, she had enlisted  the Calgary Herald into sending her over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays to write firsthand stories about the Canadians fighting a war 15,000 miles from home.  Outside the wire was exactly where she was going to write her stories from.

Wednesday, December 30, Michelle was travelling with a patrol going to cover the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) – a Canadian success story – when the LAV she was travelling in was hit by a remote-controlled mine, killing four soldiers and Michelle, and leaving five terribly injured.

Our tribe – Canadian journalists – felt for the first time in this nightmare war, the loss of one of our own.  We now know, intimately, the hurt, the indescribable emptiness, the profound grief – something that Canadian soldiers’ families have had to deal with 138 times since 2002.  We the media truly understand now.

We have come full circle.  The distrust gone, replaced by respect.  A war correspondent, Michelle Lang, 34, killed in her line of duty, outside the wire, Kandahar, Afghanistan.