http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30669-2001Dec12.html
Rivera Sparks Debate About War Role
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version
Subscribe to The Post
By David Bauder
AP Television Writer
Wednesday, December 12, 2001; 8:50 AM
NEW YORK –– From his perch near Tora Bora, Afghanistan, Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera seemed more agitated by a question about carrying a gun than by the mortar rounds that just exploded nearby.
"I refuse to address that issue," said Rivera, speaking into a satellite phone. "It's been blown way out of proportion. It makes me sound like a tabloid talk show host goes to war. It's so unfair."
Yet Rivera's decision to bring a gun into a war zone where eight journalists have been killed has raised questions about whether it's a proper – or wise – thing for a reporter to do.
Many reporters say that carrying a gun is risky because soldiers would be less likely to believe a claim that someone is a journalist, making them potential targets.
"If the word gets out that a journalist is carrying a gun, it makes it difficult for everyone," said Peter Arnett, a former war correspondent for The Associated Press and CNN.
Rivera, speaking on Fox News Channel last week, said that "if they're going to get us, it's going to be in a gunfight." But when asked specifically by an anchor whether he had a gun, he was reluctant to talk about it, finally nodding yes.
He's traveling with two guards who have five guns between them, Fox spokesman Robert Zimmerman said. Rivera isn't necessarily carrying a gun in most situations, but has one readily available, he said.
While filming a report last week, Rivera ducked after a sniper fired a few shots in his direction.
"There are eight journalists already dead," he said. "I almost got killed last Thursday and, believe me, it wasn't because of a story in the New York Post that I was carrying a gun. This is a very dangerous place.
"That makes me feel ill, that suddenly it's become an issue that I'm putting journalists at risk," he said. "That's complete bull."
NBC forbids its correspondents from carrying firearms. ABC won't discuss its security arrangements. CBS and CNN said none of their personnel carries weapons, but it isn't a formal policy.
Steve Bell, a telecommunications professor at Ball State University who covered Vietnam for ABC News, doubts he'd be alive today if he were carrying a gun when captured by Viet Cong soldiers in Cambodia in 1970.
He sat in a car while his Vietnamese co-workers convinced the soldiers that Bell was a journalist, not a CIA agent.
"If I had been carrying a weapon, I doubt if that argument would have gone over well," Bell said.
Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, who covered World War II for United Press International, said all journalists he knew then adhered to Geneva Convention rules that they should not carry weapons.