how journalists survive in war zones
Hello. This the first time I write on Medium.
Until today I have always read many articles carefully, and I find this platform really wonderful. I am a journalist, I normally deal with fashion and beauty. English is not my mother tongue, so I apologize in advance for any syntax errors and I would be very happy if someone pointed them out to me in order to perfect my English.
I want to share one story. Last year I spoke with an Italian journalist specialized in the Middle East. He writes wonderful articles directly from the countries involved in the conflicts.
I report what he told me. I will never forget it.
“They called me because I’m an expert of corpses. You, don’t make that face, I don’t know if you understand what I’m talking about. Your mission is very important, you have to explain what happens. You will try to explain the culture of these peoples and above all you will try to understand how the business works.
In this book that I have in my hands and you will study the reasons why we find ourselves in this situation. What we call terrorism has been our own, Western creature, the greatest work of destabilization in contemporary history.
And here is the first problem. If you want to remain a descriptor of places, go to work like those scoundrels who talk about the chalets in the Swiss mountains. But if you want to become a real war reporter, boy, you have to learn the customs.
And above all you must not let yourself be seen. You are not the protagonist of the story. You were sent to do the witness and write some pieces. Not to be a hero. Which then makes you want to be a hero immediately. More than once I was beaten, but you also have to be good at taking the blows. Otherwise you will break your bones if your muscles stiffen. If it happened here I would see all these, balls of bread.
Do you have to be good to do this job? You must be luckier than good.
Sometimes a colleague dies and you can’t stay close. And it’s not nice. And you have to quickly rebuild your morale and write. Because it’s your job. But this is the simplest part.
In the Arab world you are white. But if you go to Africa? You are tragically white. You can’t make a nigger. If they notice you, you’re done and we have to send a nice letter to your mom.
For this reason you must learn to be invisible, you must be healthy, have a good stomach and you must not suck the smell of rotten corpses. Because they are always there. In Somalia I walked on mounds of corpses. And what do you find near a corpse? The flies. The flies are our allies, because if you find them it means that there is a fresh corpse nearby, and it also means that you have to run because there is probably a sniper.
During the 2003 war I was in a restaurant, the first thing that disappeared was the light. Here’s what you need to survive: a generator. This beautiful device you can put in your ass because you need a satellite. Then maybe you have to buy a small fridge, because you’ll have to eat, dear. And you’ll have to get used to living like this for months.
Attention, the generating set makes noise and therefore you have to understand how and when to turn it on. How do you get the generator going? With gasoline. And you have to load it all over your shoulder. But it’s fundamental, because if you can’t send the piece, it’s as if you didn’t exist. You have to prepare yourself to survive, but don’t think it’s like in the famous books. I smoke a cigarette”.
His tone of voice, his composure, his deep sight, was so impressive for me. I decided to share this story because it is interesting to see other points of view too, the one that is rarely told. That is the point of view of a journalist who has to survive to tell many stories. Make sacrifices for the sake of truth.
