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A seminar for editors sponsored by The Crimes of War Project and The Freedom Forum Day
One: Introduction ROY GUTMAN: Good morning, everybody. My name is Roy Gutman. I am a reporter at the Newsday bureau in Washington, covering foreign affairs, and also the head of the Crimes of War Project, which is a small non-governmental organization, which has so far produced a book that I think everybody has in their hands. And we are the organizers, with The Freedom Forum, of today's seminar.
We are hoping that the next two days will provide the journalistic world, represented here, with an overview of a world that we in the news media cover sporadically, but I think insufficiently, and that is the world of conflict.
We had mulled over the idea that we should invite reporters, including reporters who cover war, to this seminar. But the planning team, Thom Shanker, who is going to be here this afternoon, from the New York Times, Tom Gjelten [of NPR], who is here this morning, Ron Haviv, the photographer, Professor Sherri Ricchiardi, from Indiana University, and I, decided that the bigger challenge was to invite editors, the gatekeepers, the guardians of the resources, the turners of the spigot.
Our book, Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know, is a guide to the laws of war. It offers some really old rules, they've been around for 50 years in many cases, in some cases longer, but for the media they actually offer some new tools, in the form that we've presented them, for the coverage of conflict. But we knew that in order to discuss the tool chest that we had to look at the structure around it, and this is quite a changing picture.
The world since 1989 is a different place. Just how different it is and the whole question of how to cover it are major topics of this conference. We are avoiding some things that you might ordinarily expect from a conference on war coverage. For example, panels with reporters talking about particular wars. We're trying to avoid war stories, too, with one very calculated exception, and that is the second panel this morning, where we have some of the best photographers from anywhere talking about the risks that have to be taken in order to do war coverage.
Instead, we hope to touch on everything you wanted to know about conflict, but perhaps hadn't had the occasion to ask. Among the points: what are the main trends in conflict? What are the risks of coverage? How do you reduce them? How do you deal with the ethical questions that arise in covering war? What are the new tools for coverage?
At the urging of Gene Roberts, we invited not only the major national media, but also the high quality provincial papers and media, who very often do some rather good work. Television is under-represented, not for want of invitations. But we have a virtual publication represented in the person of Tony Borden, who's coming from London, of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, who puts out a terrific bulletin of news, mostly from Europe.
I want to salute John Owen for encouraging us from the very start, and The Freedom Forum for hosting the event in these Elysian surroundings. Our other costs are covered by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to the Crimes of War Project.
There's a new book by Michael Ignatieff called Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond. It's published by Metropolitan Books at Henry Holt, and courtesy of them we have enough copies, I think, for everybody in the room right now. We will run out at some point, so please share, or better still, head down to the nearest bookstore and buy one. I promised Michael I'd say that. But it deserves to be bought, and we should all support each other's books.
Two last-minute program changes. We are very happy to have Ralph Peters on our opening panel, who will give a military, or perhaps I should say former military, perspective of the world of conflict. And we have a special addition - some people have talked about a mystery guest, but it's none other than the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who will be coming at 11:00.
I told her some weeks ago what we were doing in this seminar and she's decided to use this occasion to deliver remarks about accountability for war crimes, focusing on the major areas of concern for the United States today.
Her schedule is tight, so if she runs out of time her aide, David Scheffer, will stay behind to answer questions.
John, the floor is yours. Thank you. Roy
Gutman, Bio.
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