This just in. The headline on this YouTube video is “Journalist gets injured in Georgia by the Russian sniper.” Go ahead and watch — it’s not particularly graphic, and the journalist was not seriously injured; it’s more shocking than anything.
I have no verification or information on what this is, but it was clearly taken of a television reporter in the midst of a newscast. Toward the end, an anchor appears. This was posted on Twitter by Andrew Dunn, a journalism student at the University of North Carolina.
More: CNN, in describing the video, says, “While on-air, a reporter is grazed by a bullet and goes on to say the shot was fired from the Russian-controlled area.” The source is listed as Georgia’s state television service.
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CNN just showed video of a Turkish TV crew under fire too.
Why exactly is it shocking for a WAR correspondent to be shot at while reporting in a WAR zone? Frankly, I wonder if we, as a nation, consider this “shocking” because we’re so sheltered from the realities of war by a control-obsessed Bush administration. And the truly horrifying thing is that I fear many folks have fallen into this trap…folks I had thought I could count on to see the trap and avoid it.
…because they’re non combatants per the 1977 protocols to the Geneva Conventions,The first, second and third Geneva Conventions extend to war correspondents all the protections due to combatants. They were not to be treated as spies and, even though their notebooks and film could be confiscated, they did not have to respond to interrogation. If they were sick or wounded, they must receive medical treatment and, if they were captured, they must be treated humanely. This changed with the adoption of the 1977 Protocols, which explicitly recognized journalists to be civilians and due to all the civilian protections. Now, journalists must not be deliberately targeted, detained, or otherwise mistreated any more than any other civilian. This means that journalists now have an obligation to differentiate themselves from combatants by not wearing uniforms or openly carrying firearms.I suspect the sniper deliberately targeted ths Georgian correspondent, who had clearly differentiated herself from any combatants.
What’s been missing from the coverage I’ve seen is the reaction on the ground among the former USSR satellites. Our nanny is from Ukraine, and according to her, her country is very concerned Russia’s actions toward Georgia are a prelude of attacks on the other provinces.