[Music]
war is argent and it’s spectacular but
it’s also personal its intimate and one
of the things I’ve learned over the past
few years is it’s the human moments that
really count so please let me show you
let me take you to a lap all in
September of last year
here you see Mohamed gennadiy he’s
sitting on the pavement he’s standing at
Fastlane he sits down and he’s calling
out his son’s name who Sam that’s a body
bag at his feet and his son is inside
you know Aleppo was chaos but that’s an
ordinary day people are walking around
they’re walking past some stop and they
look at him
Mohamed you need he stops and very
tenderly he opens a corner of the body
bag and he speaks to his dead son inside
and he says come on son get up don’t let
the world see is like this eventually an
ambulance comes and it picks off the
body bag it’s a very powerful moment but
we never actually see the corpse Mohamed
says to no one in particular his mum’s
going to be really angry when she heals
about this the BBC’s middle-east editor
Jeremy Bourne says this you don’t just
go to Wars for the sake of it you’ve got
to have a reason because I think it’s
very intrusive prurient almost to turn
up on the worst day of somebody’s life
just because I want to be a war
correspondent so why do we do it well we
do it to bring you incite to take you to
far-off battles the far-off places to
give you a picture of lives interrupted
waves it seems so very different from
ours look at Mohamed unity
I think in that moment that was maybe 20
seconds on the 10 o’clock news you learn
more about loss and suffering in Al
Airport than you would of from watching
a hundred battles and reading a thousand
words in an article you know it’s really
wise to pay attention we aren’t immune
from his suffering and we aren’t immune
from the causes of his war he isn’t an
alien species he’s one of us he’s a
husband he’s a father he’s a son when
you’re in the middle of a battle when
you’re covering war lots of things go
through your head it’s terrifying but we
foreign correspondents have a dirty
secret it’s also thrilling the things
that go through your head sometimes it’s
existential what the hell am I doing
here other times it’s more mundane was
my helmet straighten that last piece the
camera but we are there we go they’re
following the people leading and
sometimes we’re on different sides in a
conflict my colleagues will be covering
one side I’ll be covering another we
aren’t campaigners but we all share a
fundamental belief and that’s in the
power of witnessing even if you don’t
like what we see let me introduce you to
someone else
this is Zara Arjun I met him six years
ago in Afghanistan that meeting is
stayed with me ever since
here’s why I’ll show you another picture
that’s taken from a bank CCTV footage
look at the smile on his face
he’s armed to the teeth he’s just Mardan
forty-two men women and children and
that Bank in eastern Afghanistan at
close range before he joined the Taliban
he knew not
he didn’t even know his own age like 16
or 18
he broke rocks by hand in a quarry I
interviewed him I was close enough to
touch him to look into his eyes and to
tell him for the very first time that he
was going to hang for his crime he was
genuinely surprised and he showed no
remorse so why let me bring this
appalling young man there’s murderer
interior setting because it was an
important moment it was a moment of
realization for me and hopefully for the
audience too
I realized then that Afghanistan would
probably be a war without end that there
was an unlimited supply of Zahra a jum’s
of easily manipulated angry uneducated
young men who are being fed into this
war machine and it’s Scottish soldiers
English French American Afghans were all
dying in Afghanistan for a war that
might never truly be winnable these
aren’t just superficial moments when we
bring you these people they aren’t just
gratuitous moments the moments of
understanding understanding I attacked
accelerate strategy they are moments
they tell you about war whether it will
be won or lost there are moments that
decide the fate of Nations so keep
watching war has changed the law
remember this in 2003 maybe some of you
don’t but this was a moment that was
portrayed as victory victory in Iraq we
have to avoid triumphalism of reporters
this was in a moment of victory
this wasn’t mission accomplished all
these years later Iraq like Afghanistan
still suffers and you still need to hear
about it
and as war has changed it’s become a lot
more dangerous my friends and colleagues
are being kidnapped and killed that
array we haven’t seen before some in the
most brittle and grisly fashion 800
reporters have been killed more than
that and the past decade let me take you
to somewhere very special this is the
reporters memorial and bayo France each
of those stone pillars that you see
represents a year and as you walk
through that I would it glade in the
Normandy countryside you notice that the
list of names of reporters that the died
doing doing a job like year at lengthens
as the years go on it’s a place to stop
and to touch the stone and fuel the
names of colleagues and friends I
remember on your nail ding house she was
an EP photojournalist she liked to drink
smoke like a chimney and a filthy laugh
had such humor and such humanity you
could hardly imagine she was killed by a
member of the Afghan security forces in
Afghanistan and there’s another name
that they’re going to be adding to one
of the pillows they’re Shiva Gardner she
was a fantastically glamorous Kurdish
journalist in Iraq I met her the day
before she died on the front lines in
Mosul
she was so glamorous that even in the
midst of battle the soldiers were
stopping to take selfies and to get her
autograph then the next day she went
somewhere important she went to what we
thought was a mass grave belonging to
the so-called Islamic state we think
they buried thousands of bodies there
and they left something else there they
left a booby trap and it killed Chifa
and badly injured her cameraman a month
later in Erbil in Iraq I sat in a dark
auditorium like this with our colleagues
at her memorial and I listened to grown
men and
and Saab 800 over the past 10 years
don’t talk to me about fake news look at
that slow I call them the deadbeat Club
these are my friends and colleagues the
journalists they are from ITV from Sky
News and of course from the BBC we were
all and morsel covering that battle I
have to say that pretty much every one
of us will tell you it’s the most
dangerous thing that any of us ever did
but you know what we were back again and
again and again and the reason that we
went back is well let me just tell you
first of all here’s an interesting point
aside from Iraq itself no other country
sent so many journalists to cover that
conflict than Britain and we did that
not because British soldiers are dying
there they are there are hardly any
British soldiers there are a few special
forces some trainers we went because
this is the story of our time the battle
against the so-called Islamic state and
you need to know about it so really this
is the good news there is good news in
Britain we’ve created a media which is
broadly accurate most of the time which
is truthful more importantly it
challenges you pay attention to when you
watch the news you should feel angry you
should feel moved you should feel second
and really you know those moments when
you don’t want to watch anymore keep
watching thank
[Applause]
war is argent and it’s spectacular but
it’s also personal its intimate and one
of the things I’ve learned over the past
few years is it’s the human moments that
really count so please let me show you
let me take you to a lap all in
September of last year
here you see Mohamed gennadiy he’s
sitting on the pavement he’s standing at
Fastlane he sits down and he’s calling
out his son’s name who Sam that’s a body
bag at his feet and his son is inside
you know Aleppo was chaos but that’s an
ordinary day people are walking around
they’re walking past some stop and they
look at him
Mohamed you need he stops and very
tenderly he opens a corner of the body
bag and he speaks to his dead son inside
and he says come on son get up don’t let
the world see is like this eventually an
ambulance comes and it picks off the
body bag it’s a very powerful moment but
we never actually see the corpse Mohamed
says to no one in particular his mum’s
going to be really angry when she heals
about this the BBC’s middle-east editor
Jeremy Bourne says this you don’t just
go to Wars for the sake of it you’ve got
to have a reason because I think it’s
very intrusive prurient almost to turn
up on the worst day of somebody’s life
just because I want to be a war
correspondent so why do we do it well we
do it to bring you incite to take you to
far-off battles the far-off places to
give you a picture of lives interrupted
waves it seems so very different from
ours look at Mohamed unity
I think in that moment that was maybe 20
seconds on the 10 o’clock news you learn
more about loss and suffering in Al
Airport than you would of from watching
a hundred battles and reading a thousand
words in an article you know it’s really
wise to pay attention we aren’t immune
from his suffering and we aren’t immune
from the causes of his war he isn’t an
alien species he’s one of us he’s a
husband he’s a father he’s a son when
you’re in the middle of a battle when
you’re covering war lots of things go
through your head it’s terrifying but we
foreign correspondents have a dirty
secret it’s also thrilling the things
that go through your head sometimes it’s
existential what the hell am I doing
here other times it’s more mundane was
my helmet straighten that last piece the
camera but we are there we go they’re
following the people leading and
sometimes we’re on different sides in a
conflict my colleagues will be covering
one side I’ll be covering another we
aren’t campaigners but we all share a
fundamental belief and that’s in the
power of witnessing even if you don’t
like what we see let me introduce you to
someone else
this is Zara Arjun I met him six years
ago in Afghanistan that meeting is
stayed with me ever since
here’s why I’ll show you another picture
that’s taken from a bank CCTV footage
look at the smile on his face
he’s armed to the teeth he’s just Mardan
forty-two men women and children and
that Bank in eastern Afghanistan at
close range before he joined the Taliban
he knew not
he didn’t even know his own age like 16
or 18
he broke rocks by hand in a quarry I
interviewed him I was close enough to
touch him to look into his eyes and to
tell him for the very first time that he
was going to hang for his crime he was
genuinely surprised and he showed no
remorse so why let me bring this
appalling young man there’s murderer
interior setting because it was an
important moment it was a moment of
realization for me and hopefully for the
audience too
I realized then that Afghanistan would
probably be a war without end that there
was an unlimited supply of Zahra a jum’s
of easily manipulated angry uneducated
young men who are being fed into this
war machine and it’s Scottish soldiers
English French American Afghans were all
dying in Afghanistan for a war that
might never truly be winnable these
aren’t just superficial moments when we
bring you these people they aren’t just
gratuitous moments the moments of
understanding understanding I attacked
accelerate strategy they are moments
they tell you about war whether it will
be won or lost there are moments that
decide the fate of Nations so keep
watching war has changed the law
remember this in 2003 maybe some of you
don’t but this was a moment that was
portrayed as victory victory in Iraq we
have to avoid triumphalism of reporters
this was in a moment of victory
this wasn’t mission accomplished all
these years later Iraq like Afghanistan
still suffers and you still need to hear
about it
and as war has changed it’s become a lot
more dangerous my friends and colleagues
are being kidnapped and killed that
array we haven’t seen before some in the
most brittle and grisly fashion 800
reporters have been killed more than
that and the past decade let me take you
to somewhere very special this is the
reporters memorial and bayo France each
of those stone pillars that you see
represents a year and as you walk
through that I would it glade in the
Normandy countryside you notice that the
list of names of reporters that the died
doing doing a job like year at lengthens
as the years go on it’s a place to stop
and to touch the stone and fuel the
names of colleagues and friends I
remember on your nail ding house she was
an EP photojournalist she liked to drink
smoke like a chimney and a filthy laugh
had such humor and such humanity you
could hardly imagine she was killed by a
member of the Afghan security forces in
Afghanistan and there’s another name
that they’re going to be adding to one
of the pillows they’re Shiva Gardner she
was a fantastically glamorous Kurdish
journalist in Iraq I met her the day
before she died on the front lines in
Mosul
she was so glamorous that even in the
midst of battle the soldiers were
stopping to take selfies and to get her
autograph then the next day she went
somewhere important she went to what we
thought was a mass grave belonging to
the so-called Islamic state we think
they buried thousands of bodies there
and they left something else there they
left a booby trap and it killed Chifa
and badly injured her cameraman a month
later in Erbil in Iraq I sat in a dark
auditorium like this with our colleagues
at her memorial and I listened to grown
men and
and Saab 800 over the past 10 years
don’t talk to me about fake news look at
that slow I call them the deadbeat Club
these are my friends and colleagues the
journalists they are from ITV from Sky
News and of course from the BBC we were
all and morsel covering that battle I
have to say that pretty much every one
of us will tell you it’s the most
dangerous thing that any of us ever did
but you know what we were back again and
again and again and the reason that we
went back is well let me just tell you
first of all here’s an interesting point
aside from Iraq itself no other country
sent so many journalists to cover that
conflict than Britain and we did that
not because British soldiers are dying
there they are there are hardly any
British soldiers there are a few special
forces some trainers we went because
this is the story of our time the battle
against the so-called Islamic state and
you need to know about it so really this
is the good news there is good news in
Britain we’ve created a media which is
broadly accurate most of the time which
is truthful more importantly it
challenges you pay attention to when you
watch the news you should feel angry you
should feel moved you should feel second
and really you know those moments when
you don’t want to watch anymore keep
watching thank
[Applause]
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