[Thumper]

CNN correspondent Brent Sadler is currently under fire in Tikrit. Amazing footage on CNN right now. Guard in CNN car returns fire with his AK.

They made it through one checkpoint safely, but were stopped and then came under automatic weapons fire at about 3 meters range.

Right now they're running from pursuing vehicles. Wow...

[Kharn]

Friendly fire sucks, they should have identified themselves better and the Iraqis wouldnt have given them a second glance.

Kharn :rolleyes:

[hksw]

Just saw a re-ariing of it. Not entirely sure it was a Coalition checkpoint as i caught the segment in the middle. Did see the part where he and his company found an abandoned APC intact and the 12.7 loaded. Not sure I would have been stand near it, much less crawling around in it, as they are generally bomb, missle, and 30mm DU magnets and the war is still on.

[OF]

I guess the Iraqi's don't like the coverage either, eh?

- Gabe

[Greybeard]

If you go looking for trouble, you CAN find it ... :rolleyes:

[Ol' Badger]

Shooting CNN reporters. Bummer :rolleyes:

[CZ-75]

I guess the Iraqis recognized them as supporters of the old regime, probably after reading their news director's confession of complicity. ;)

[Marko Kloos]

Newsflash: War is dangerous business. Being a journalist does not make you immune to bullets.

[Pendragon]

did he make it?

[Schuey2002]

Gee.. maybe it's not safe to be driving around Tikrit without military escort after all..:rolleyes:

[pittspilot]

I watched that live last night.

It was incredible coverage, and it also showed that Brent is not a wise man. I had the heebie-jeebies just from looking at the TV, in person I would not have carried through with what he did.

There is bravery, and then there is stupidity. He is damn lucky no one lobbed an RPG at his convoy.

[Zundfolge]

I read an article a while back about how many times soldiers have a hard time when they see journalists in the distance with big shoulder mounted cameras because from a distance the camera looks a lot like an RPG :what:

[ahadams]

later reports stated specifically that the CNN team was TRYING to find out if the Iraqi forces were still in Tikrit...well they accomplished there mission, so what are they complaining about?

Question of the ?day/week/whatever? how many more dead news reporters is it going to take before the "mainstream" media realize that they are not now and never have been either considered neutral nor truly bullet proof?:banghead:

[Blackhawk]

I'm still amazed at the shock exhibited by some reporters irate that we fired on the Palestine Hotel after receiving some fire from it. "You KNEW there were journalists there!" said as though it should make a difference.

[chaim]

And here is the reaction from an international group dedicated to the "protection" of journalists:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030413/tv_nm/iraq_media_cnn_dc_6


Media Watchdog Concerned CNN Had Armed Guard
Sun Apr 13, 1:45 PM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - A media watchdog expressed concern on Sunday that a CNN team reporting from Iraq was traveling with an armed guard, saying it set a "dangerous precedent" that could imperil other journalists.

Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) made the comments after an incident in the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit in which a security guard hired by CNN fired his machinegun at a checkpoint when the CNN convoy came under gunfire.

"This behavior creates a dangerous precedent that could imperil all other reporters covering this conflict and others in the future," Robert Menard, RSF secretary general, said in a statement.

"There is a real risk that belligerents will believe all press vehicles are armed," he said, adding that the use of armed private security guards only increased the confusion between reporters and combatants in the conflict.

Media organizations have employed armed guards to protect premises in particularly dangerous places.

But a spokesman for the Paris-based media watchdog said it was unprecedented for journalists to travel with armed guards in conflict zones.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time press vehicles have traveled with armed security guards. It did not happen in the Balkans and it didn't occur in the first Gulf War," RSF spokesman Jean-Francois Julliard said.

"CNN appears to be going too far. This could come back to haunt them and other journalists. Journalists should not be traveling around with armed guards," he added.

CNN spokesman Matthew Firman said the team of reporters had come under small arms and automatic weapons fire from "relatively close range" either on the way in or out of Tikrit.

He said an Iraqi Kurd, hired as a security guard, had opened fire in response and been lightly wounded in the exchange. No one else was hurt.

Pointing to an earlier CNN report of an alleged assassination plot by Iraqi agents against its reporters in the north, Firman said locals had been hired in Kurdish-controlled Iraq to protect the station's journalists.

"Presumably we hire them to protect us, so if firing their weapon is required to protect themselves and our team, then that is appropriate," he said, in response to questions about CNN's policy of hiring armed guards.

"We only put our teams in situations in which we can do our best to ensure their safety. If it means hiring armed guards or security consultants we will do that. The security of our team is paramount," Firman said.



I guess CNN should have left their reporters unprotected in an environment where Iraqis have been killing reporters at times and that they had issued a bounty on the heads of CNN reporters in the region. In the opinion of this group, in order to "protect" reporters this reporter should have been undefended and been allowed to be killed. :banghead:

Sheeple :cuss:

[cool45auto]

Man, that sucks.:rolleyes:

[Dan Morris]

Was this part of Geraldo's map??????
Dan

[Thumper]

Not entirely sure it was a Coalition checkpoint as i caught the segment in the middle.
The checkpoint was NOT coalition. Kharn was joking about friendly fire. It was manned by Ba'ath party members.

I watched these nuts drive around for about three hours doing various stupid things. They finally got word from "some teacher" they met on the road that they could safely follow him into Tikrit.

They then pass a checkpoint where armed Iraqis tell them not to film. So, being journalists, they're driving around filming...then they're stopped and told ONCE AGAIN not to film. Now it's very tense, the cam's on the floorboards and the Atlanta correspondant is trying to cover the tension.

Incredibly, they're let go and they stick the cam back out the window (who says journalists aren't bright). Twenty seconds later they're catching lead.

Darwin is dead...

[ahadams]

hey guys, this is cnn central and the sat transmission garbled back there - go back to the checkpoint and shoot that part again, would you?:neener:

[0007]

ole badger -

No, shooting and MISSING cnn "reporters", bummer... heh, heh, heh:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Kharn]

Kharn was joking about friendly fire. It was manned by Ba'ath party members.

If the CNN reporters had better identified themselves as being with CNN, the Ba'athists practically would have given them a parade, thus the friendly fire incident.

Kharn

[hksw]

Gotcha.

[CZ-75]

I'd give these guys amnesty for previous war crimes if they'd agree to set up shop in Atlanta around CNN Center. :D