A Higher Purpose

Allen Pizzey: CBS Journalists Were Killed And Hurt Trying To Make Sense Of The War's Turmoil

(CBS)  Good cameramen must put emotion aside to do his job, but if they do not have a heart, if they do not feel, their pictures will be flat, emotionless. They will fail to capture the essence of TV, raw human emotion. Paul never had that problem.

In the madness of Sarajevo, you couldn’t go anywhere with a TV camera without kids asking if “chelo bonbon” was with you. “Bonbon” was what the kids there called candy, and “chelo” is the phonetic spelling of a word in Serbo-Croat that means “bald”. “Chelo Bonbon” was a huge black man with a bald head and a fisherman’s vest with every pocket stuffed full of candies. You couldn’t help everyone in Sarajevo, but you could brighten a kid's day with a candy. They would lay siege to get one. But when they saw Paul, they dutifully stood in line, waiting for a “bonbon,” and that huge grin. But woe betide any official who got between Paul and a picture he knew had to be taken.

When the Serbs were expelling ethnic Albanians from Kosovo into Macedonia, we followed a train full of refugees that crossed the border. It stopped at a siding – a scene from Word War II, hands out the window, people wailing inside, wire keeping the doors sealed. Several armed Macedonian police and other officials tried to block us from approaching it. We argued fruitlessly for a few minutes, then Paul said, in a calm and measured tone, “Sorry mate, but I have to take that picture.” By the time the police recovered from the fact that they had just been barged past by a black human bulldozer, the pictures were on tape, and became part of a series of stories that won an Overseas Press Club award.

James Brolan wasn’t on that one, but if he had been, like the soundman he was, he’d have been right there with his microphone. A laconic nature and laid back image belied the technical competence and dedication. Soundmen are the oft-ignored but essential element of a TV story. Without pictures, TV becomes radio. Without sound, it is little better. Sound is the subtle underpinning of a story. It makes the difference between average and great. Watch a good soundman work and as often as not the microphone is not pointing where the camera is aimed, because the ambience, the deeper meaning of the image, is often sound coming from another direction, and the best soundmen find it. James Brolan knew where to listen.

He also knew how to make life fun. My favorite James Brolan story is of him being on a shoot involving several cameras for an interview with the actor George Clooney. It is not being unkind to say that in the looks department, James was no George. Who is? Before the interview began, Clooney was introduced to each member of the crew. When he reached out to shake James’ hand, James looked up at him and said: “F*** me, it’s like looking in the mirror!” To Clooney’s credit, he laughed uproariously along with everyone else. James had that kind of effect.

And Kimberly? Think of Lois Lane meets Wonder Woman. Athletic, obsessively dedicated to getting the story, Kimberly is a product of her roots in radio. That’s a school where you learn to be quick, because the deadline is always now.

Kimberly Dozier became a TV correspondent by dint of hard work and dedication. One simple example will suffice. When the NATO bombing of Kosovo was about to begin, Kimberly was in Belgrade for radio, but the heart of the story was in Pristina, in Kosovo, a long and dangerous road from Belgrade. Just hours before the deadline for war, she showed up in the hotel in Pristina. She never did get around to telling us how she made it, because the bombing started, and she was too busy reporting it. Paul Douglas was there too.

It may be politically incorrect to say this, but it is true, and in the strange little world of journalists who cover conflicts, the best compliment one can pay - she’s one ballsy lady.

Every death and injury in Baghdad is a story, and a tragedy in its own way. Not all can be told. I am sorry to have had to tell this one, but proud to know the people it is about. They represent all that is good about what we do, and their deaths and injuries will not be in vain, because what they did forbears the excuse “we did not know.”