Truth in a War Zone: The phenomenon of the ‘Combat Journalist’
The Combat Journalist (n.) – a journalist who will go to extreme lengths for a story, including walking into open warfare, having clandestine meetings with guerrilla fighters and is passionate about social justice. May not have too much common sense, but does not wear toy lizards around one’s neck, nor have a ditzy smile. Sometimes will wear khaki.
With the release of Balibo this month, it seems we are moving into an era where the story of the Combat Journalist is now being be told. The traditional storyteller (journalist) finds himself at the centre of his own tale. And people are sitting up and listening. Interest in the film Balibo has forced the Rudd Government to conduct an inquiry into the long-forgotten deaths of 5 journalists in East Timor.
In film, theatre and television this narrative shift is placing the Combat Journalist as the protagonist in search for truth and justice. Untold tales of foreign journalists killed on the frontline are coming to the fore. It is a private and intimate space where journalists battle to survive and where lives are sacrificed in the name of justice and truth. Its also public, big-screen gold.
The Australian movie Balibo takes viewers into the heart of East Timor in 1975 where former journalist Roger East (Anthony LaPaligia) goes in search of five Australian journalists who had been reported missing. These five journalists from Channel Seven and Channel Nine are out to get a story on the Indonesian invasion and have taken themselves to the frontline of the battle in Balibo, despite many warnings of its danger and fears for their safety.
For a little ‘deep background’, The Australian Government at the time would not intervene with the invasion, which left over 130 000 innocent Timorese citizens dead and many others wounded. These journalists bravely, and some would argue naively took it upon themselves to tell the plight of the East Timorese people, who had only just declared Independence from Portuguese colonisation three days earlier. “People need to know of the injustices taking place!” Former journalist Roger East frantically writes as the Indonesian army invade Dili.
When confronted by an ABC journalist who told the Channel 9 and Channel 7 journalists it was too dangerous in Balibo, journalist Greg Shackleton argues, “It’s a direct violation. That’s why we should be here.” It is only the ABC journalist that decides to go home, for his own safety. “They’re fucking crazy”, he tells Roger East back at home of the five journalists missing. Does the competition between the two rival stations lead the journalists to think they are invincible against the Indonesian army?
The Combat Journalist is indeed a heroic figure, but does their passion for social injustice lead them astray? Do ratings come into this fight for justice?
Without spoiling the movie for you, in the final scenes of the journalists’ execution they plead to the Indonesians: “We’re journalists! We’re Australians! You can’t do this!”
Unfortunately for many journalists this plea goes unnoticed in a war zone. Only a few months ago, a former colleague of mine from the Phnom Penh Post was brutally beaten when covering the election crisis in Iran. In trying to tell the world of the injustices in Iran he was severely silenced.
According to Reporters Sans Frontiers 22 journalists have already been killed this year (60 were killed in 2008) and over 200 journalists and journalist assistants have been imprisoned for their work this year. A former colleague of mine covering the election in Iran was brutally beaten, just a few months ago.
The Combat Journalist is a figure that should be celebrated, but heroism can be cheap. Journalists are not invincible. Do we choose to glorify the Combat journalist who throws away personal safety for a glimpse of the truth? Where injustice still thrives, the answer is yes.
