IN MY SHOES: Journalism During Wartime
Writing in The Washington Post, Bassam Sebti, a special correspondent for the paper from 2003 to 2006, describes what it’s like to be a journalist in Iraq:
Under Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime, the media were nothing more than a government mouthpiece. But after the war, it was different. I saw the need to tell the world what was happening in my country. …
Each day that I worked for The Post involved attempts to prevent my own killing. No one in my neighborhood knew where I worked or what I really did for a living. I told everyone that I ran my own business, an Internet café … If people had known the truth, word might have reached bloodthirsty insurgents who wait for a chance to add another name to their death lists. …
I never let down my guard. Stress became my companion. Even when I slept, my senses stayed alert -- and ready to use the AK-47 I placed next to my bed in case I was attacked at home.
Despite the risks, though, and despite my parents' frequent pleas that I quit my job, I believed in my work as a reporter. We need the world to see and hear about what is happening here, I always told my parents.
But bringing that truth to the world is not an easy task. Whenever I was assigned to cover clashes and fighting in the streets of Baghdad, I would discuss with my bureau chief and other Iraqi reporters how I could do it without getting killed. For me, that meant going to the scene an hour or two after the fighting ended. In the meantime, I would call everyone I knew in the neighborhood to get a clear picture of what was going on.
Sebti is currently pursuing a master’s degree at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, and notes that others journalists "haven't had my good fortune" and stay in Iraq because they can’t afford to leave or have no where else to go.
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