All Blog Posts from Public Eye

CBS News journalists are reflecting on their fallen colleagues, Paul Douglas and James Brolan, who were killed yesterday in Iraq and correspondent Kimberly Dozier who remains in critical condition. You can watch correspondent Mark Phillips tell their stories by clicking on the picture below.

But others who know first-hand the dangers of Iraq are sending their thoughts as well. ABC’s Bob Woodruff, the network anchor who was severely wounded last year in a similar attack, wrote about his colleagues on ABC’s “World News Tonight” blog:

I have met both remarkable journalists Kimberly Dozier and Paul Douglas in so many different countries from Israel to Afghanistan. Their work and intelligence have always impressed me, whenever our paths have crossed.

James Brolan and I were embedded together, working very closely on many difficult stories. During the Iraqi invasion in 2003 we spent more than a month on the road with the Marines and it was often James’ wonderful sense of humor that kept us going.

I was devastated this morning when I heard today’s news. My thoughts are with all of the families and friends of the men and women injured today in Iraq.

Writing on his network’s “Blogging Baghdad” blog, NBC News correspondent Richard Engel writes:

When I heard the explosion at 11 a.m. Monday morning, I had no idea I was listening to my colleagues being killed. The blast sounded just like the two other blasts - booming, rumbling, base sounds like claps of thunder – I’d heard before 9 a.m.

Now that I know what happened, however, I can’t help but imagine the scene. I don’t want to. I can’t help it. I can see the aftermath, that evil kaleidoscope of smoke, blood, metal, soldiers and guns, all colored red with panic and blanketed with the lingering smell of munitions like a million struck matches.

We all fear that this day will come, the day when a bomb will tear a piece off of us.

Read full post…

Estimating the numbers of people killed in any war is an inexact science. But the deaths of CBS News cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan, who were killed by a car bomb while accompanying a military patrol in Baghdad, along with a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter, may represent a milestone.

According to Ann Cooper of the Committee To Protect Journalists, 71 journalists and 26 support staffers have been killed in the Iraq war. "That number [71] is more than the 63 killed in Vietnam, the 17 killed in Korea, and even the 69 killed in World War II, according to Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan free speech advocacy group," notes the New York Times. The Times thus determines that, at least by some estimates, "the death of two journalists working for CBS News on Monday firmly secured the Iraq war as the deadliest conflict for reporters in modern times."

It's important to note that while an estimated 71 journalists have been killed in the war, more than 2,450 American soldiers have died. More than 200 foreign military personnel have been killed. There have been, according to estimates, more than 4,700 Iraqi police and military casualties, and an unknown but certainly significant number of Iraq civilians killed.

Some commenters have complained that CBS News has given too much coverage to its own personnel at the expense of coverage of soldiers. Certainly, their deaths are just two among many, and the tragedy one of countless that have occurred in this war. Douglas and Brolin, along with injured colleague Kimberly Dozier, risked their lives telling the stories of these tragedies, as well as other stories of the war. When they were killed, they were working on a story about how Memorial Day is a day just like any other for American troops.

While there is value in considering the figures, they can never really tell the story of a war. I think Bob Schieffer did a nice job articulating what many at CBS News are feeling last night when he said that "days like today are reminders that this is not about numbers -- each of those numbers is a person, a person that others know or love or depend on."

Read full post…