The Most Dangerous Game

The American freelance cameraman who contracted Ebola in Liberia arrived in the United States today to receive treatment. He’s the fifth American to catch the deadly virus.

The plane carrying 33-year-old Ashoka Mukpo left the Liberian capital Monrovia and made a brief refueling stop in Bangor, Maine, before landing in Nebraska.

I watched, from our studios at Al Jazeera America, as we broadcast this morning’s live images of Mukpo’s stretcher moving across the runway at Eppley Airfield, to an ambulance staffed with a medical team.

“Mukpo is headed for the Nebraska Medical Center, which previously treated a US doctor, Rick Sacra,* who was infected with Ebola in Liberia back in September,” my colleague Stephanie Sy told our audience.

The dramatic images of the Mukpo—full bodysuit and face mask, ambulance, police convoy, medical team, HazMats—underscores the dangers reporters face, as they walk the tightrope between personal safety and journalism. For freelance journalists, the rope is higher, with no safety net below.

The recent executions of James Foley and Steven Sotloff in Syria by the terrorist group ISIL brought much needed attention to the stark realities for freelancers covering conflicts in Syria and across the Middle East. Given the limited resources of news organization and the increasing reliance on freelancers, especially overseas, the time has come for a deeper deliberation about the relationship between news outlets and the freelancers they employ.

For journalists reporting on Ebola— a disease that can cause its victims to hemorrhage to death, and for which there is no cure or reliable vaccine, a new danger arises, but one no less deadly.

The Ebola story calls for reporting on a disease that, according to the World Health Organization, has infected 7,400 people, killing more than 3,400, in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone since March. Most news organizations are following a set of recommendations from the CDC, but some are going farther, cautioning their correspondents and cameramen not to enter isolation units or attend funerals, and to avoid gatherings or demonstrations.

Mukpo has worked for Vice News, The Guardian and Al Jazeera. At the time he fell ill, he was on assignment for NBC News shooting for my friend Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the NBC medical correspondent who will be quarantined in the United States for 21 days, which is considered the incubation time for the virus. The network said that it is monitoring other members of its production team in Liberia and would fly them back to the United States on a private plane, as necessary.

Since the recession, however, networks have scaled back, or entirely shuttered overseas bureaus. Newsrooms have come to rely more heavily on freelancers. Journalists—especially those who are interested in serious journalism — are increasingly compelled to work independently.

What does that mean in practical terms? Freelancers often must pay not only for their own health insurance but for their own war-zone insurance — to cover not just treatment at foreign hospitals, but emergency evacuation. It is typically the most costly security consideration for news outlets. By hiring freelancers, a news organization can save a lot on its budget. But so can freelancers. Many freelancers choose to forgo the insurance because they simply cannot afford it.

Another cost incurred by freelancers? Basic equipment. For a reporter this might simply be a cellphone and a laptop. But for a cameraman we are talking camera and sound equipment. Put those people in a war zone and they need body armor, helmet, flak jacket, protective gear. Who buys that? They do. Or they don’t, depending on how much or how little they are being paid. Sometimes they are paid a day rate that that barely covers expenses.

I mentor a lot of young journalists coming into the business. Journalists with less experience are generally willing to report from dangerous places and to ask for less from budget-conscious news organizations. Aspiring young journalists who want to get hired can’t make demands. The outlets will simply hire someone else who won’t.

As news editors and executives we should ask ourselves, is it ethical to take work from freelancers in dangerous places if we are not sharing in the risk? And as news consumers we should educate ourselves about who is bringing us that great story—and the risks they are taking to get it.

*Sacra, a doctor from Massacusetts, recovered from Ebola but was hospitalized again, over the weekend, with a respiratory infection.