The term "War Correspondent" is, without doubt, glamorous. (In fact, if you do a search on the words with AltaVista, you're offered as a first choice http://www.aviation-mall.com/backpack.ht... , which features a leather backpack made to look as if a war correspondent has dragged it through the world's combat zones.
On our TV and radio news bulletins, we're used to watching and listening to brave journalists going to hell and back to bring us a flavour of what's happening in the war zone. In fact, as we go about our busy lives, we've come to accept CNN's Christiane Ammanpour or the BBC's Kate Adie as part of the wallpaper. (There used to be a feeling in the UK that a conflict wasn't all that serious until the BBC had sent Kate Adie there - then we knew we were in trouble).
But it's not glamorous. It's scary. More than that - it's terrifying.
A Waugh Correspondent
For example, read David Usborne's fascinating description of his experience as a real life war correspondent. The panic, the unease, the sheer barminess of war is revealed in all its stupidity at http://www.independent.co.uk/med/990921m...
Journalists, especially those working alone, tend to make alliances with each other. There is safety in numbers. Information gets traded on new developments. More importantly on a story like this, judgements on issues of safety are more easily made when the wisdom of many can be pooled.
Those experienced in war reporting have been clear for a long time that covering the East Timor crisis has carried more peril than any other conflict they can remember. In most wars, safety is maintained if you cross no lines. In East Timor, there were no lines and no sides.
Some of his account reads like an extract from Evelyn Waugh's classic "Scoop".
For the rest of us at the Jakarta Mandarin, the mood all weekend was one of near hysteria. We were tantalised by promises of planes that would be leaving imminently for Dili. Our first great hope was a 68-seat Fokker chartered by the Agence France Press bureau here. I got the call early on Friday morning: get to the AFP office by 9am with $500 in cash and you will be on your way. And make sure the competition does not hear of it.
Maggie O'Kane is one of the few journalists in East Timor itself - her description backs up Usborne's thoughts at http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/internati...
