Media Matters

Why my son went to Ukraine

War reporters do brave, admirable work for little reward stephen glover

Nadine Dorries may not be my favourite politician, but my heart warmed to her when she recently shed a tear in the Commons while expressing her ‘heartfelt thanks and admiration’ to BBC, ITV and other journalists who are risking their lives in Ukraine.

The question I want to ask is: why do they do it? Most of them don’t win fame, and none earns great riches. I imagine that many of us can’t remember more than a handful of their names. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet, perhaps, and a few others. Can you recall the bylines of correspondents in your daily newspaper (if you still read one) who are risking their lives to bring you the news?

That it is dangerous can hardly be doubted. As I write, at least five journalists have been killed in Ukraine, and I am sure there will be more. Others have been injured, including Stuart Ramsay of Sky News, who was shot in the back, seemingly by a saboteur Russian reconnaissance squad. It’s said that some Russian soldiers deliberately target journalists.

These reporters generally have very little back-up. Most have body armour, and usually the help of a local Ukrainian ‘fixer’ who knows the area. The TV crews (don’t forget the brave camera-operators who are often unacknowledged) tend to have the advice of professional security people. Newspaper journalists have less support. Some of them are entirely alone, without even the assistance of a fixer.

I speak with some feeling, since for three weeks my younger son, Alexander, was in Ukraine as a journalist – for most of the time in Kyiv, until he got out in one piece to Lviv, thanks to a generous Sky News team. We should think of the wives, husbands, parents and siblings who watch helplessly as those they love report on a foreign war. Anxious relatives are able to communicate via WhatsApp with extraordinary ease, but can do nothing.

So why do these journalists do it? As I say, it can’t be for the money or the fame, since there is little of either. The best might hope to earn the respect of colleagues, which is always a nice thing to have, though it’s inevitably ephemeral. Journalists are often a cynical bunch, but I suppose that most of them – including even columnists who seldom leave their armchairs – are animated by a desire to pass on the truth.

Occasionally I find myself wondering whether it is worth it. Like many people, since the horror began I must have watched dozens of hours of television footage of suffering people and demolished cities. (The journalist with a camera has a dramatic advantage over the one who deals in words. Modern war favours television over newspapers.) I have sometimes asked myself: is it really worth risking your life for yet another shot of corpses lying in the street, or another ruined building?

Such heterodox thoughts are doubtless induced by a kind of watcher’s fatigue. Haven’t we seen enough? Why must (usually young) men and women put their lives on the line for a 30-second clip, which will be soon forgotten – if absorbed at all at the end of a busy day – or a few hundred words below the fold which may not be properly read or understood?

And then I remind myself that everything we know about the war comes from these journalists. What they give us may only be fleeting snapshots, but cumulatively they inform us about an incredible and horrific conflict. We may overreact, or we may underreact, but we should know. These brave reporters are offering us a precious service – which is why, like Nadine Dorries, I take my hat off to them in a spirit of gratitude and awe.

Is the identity of a journalist’s source always sacrosanct? Like most hacks, I believe so.

Nevertheless, a recent case involving former Labour MP and Blairite minister Chris Mullin has set me thinking. Mullin did more than any other journalist to establish that the six men imprisoned for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombing (in which 21 people died) were innocent.

In the course of his investigations more than ten years later, he interviewed a man who confessed to being a party to the atrocity. Mullin gave notes of his interview to the police but withheld the identity of the guilty man. The police used counterterrorism laws to make him reveal it, but a judge has just found in Mullin’s favour.

This is probably correct. In any case, the name of the alleged murderer has been published. Relatives of victims are naturally upset that Mullin won’t confirm it, while he claims there is no prospect of a successful prosecution.

Journalists are justified in protecting their sources wherever possible. But it is surely wrong-headed to assume that this right is absolute and should always trump the public interest. I can imagine extreme cases involving national security when a journalist should be compelled to cough up, even if Mullin’s is not one of them.