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"You Take All The Precautions That You Can, And You're Never Safe."

By Hillary Profita

June 5, 2006 / 11:26 AM EDT / CBS News

(CBS/AP)

Amid a growing amount of attention to the risks reporters are taking in Iraq following the deaths of CBS News cameraman Paul Douglas and sound technician James Brolan and the injury of CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier, Broadcasting & Cable solicited some thoughts from several television reporters who have been covering the conflict. Their reflections offer a closer look at some of the day to day challenges of reporting in Iraq and address much of the criticism of mainstream coverage of the war that has come up in recent months. Clark Bentson, an ABC News producer who has served in the rotating position of Baghdad Bureau Chief and now spends four months a year in Iraq, had this to say about the considerations that must be made in the face of inherent risks:

I'd never go, or ask anyone else to go, to Fallujah or Ramadiyah without the U.S. military. We had a freelance cameraman a year ago killed in Fallujah, shot by U.S. military that didn't understand what he was doing there. I helped organize and was here when Bob Woodruff was here and worked with the 4th Infantry Division to set that up, and we all know what happened there. You take all the precautions that you can, and you're never safe. It is absolutely Russian roulette every time someone leaves the compound, and you have to make the decision if that interview or picture is really worth it. [Since ABC's Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were injured], every time we embed with the military now has to be approved [by ABC News executives]. Our management team who are not in the field now have a better understanding of the risks we take.

As for criticisms of a disconnect between what's really going on in Iraq and what the media presents to the audience, CBS correspondent Lara Logan had this to say:

How many people in Iraq have access to clean drinking water and electricity? Oil production is not even at pre-war levels. We always have to put it in context. Individuals are often disappointed by a story because, instead of saying how amazing and wonderful it is, when we put it in the broader context of reconstruction in Iraq, it is an abysmal failure. Then, people say we're not telling the real story of how happy the villagers are. But there are 30 million people in this country, and how many of them are happy? The disconnect comes in the understanding of our jobs. We are not the information arm of the Army or U.S. government.