Global Journalism Review
Thousands had signed online petition
By Jon Williams,
BBC World News Editor, July 4, 2007,
10:16 AM.
Calls in the middle of the night are something of
an occupational hazard for a journalist. Never have I been more pleased to be
woken as I was at 1.36 this morning. It was the newsdesk with a line of copy
from a news agency. It read:
"BBC
JOURNALIST ALAN JOHNSTON FREED, HANDED TO HAMAS OFFICIALS IN GAZA" - PALESTINIAN SOURCE.
It was the end of a
nightmare. 114 days after he was abducted, Alan is free. Over the last 16
weeks, more than 200,000 of you have signed our online
petition, thousands more have added your comments to our Have Your Say
website.
As he crossed from Gaza
early this morning, Alan told me how he'd drawn real support from the knowledge
that so many people were showing their solidarity - how he felt a duty to get
through it to show their support was not misplaced. Typical Alan.
But your support was vital
in sustaining not only Alan and his family, but also his colleagues, who, for
the past 16 weeks, have rallied in a show of solidarity. And not just on the
BBC News website.
For 14 of his 16 weeks in
captivity, Alan had access to the BBC World Service. The messages from the
listeners to World Have
Your Say were an enormous source of strength - particularly those
from former hostages like Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan who
recorded birthday wishes for a special edition of the programme earlier this
year.
In launching the BBC's Annual Report
(PDF link) yesterday, the BBC Director General Mark Thompson said that the BBC
depends on people like Alan - on their courage and integrity and conviction.
Since his release, Alan has
conducted a series of media interviews (listen here)
in his usual calm and composed way, displaying all of these qualities in his
reporting - the same qualities that will help him through the difficult days he
will now face as he re-adjusts to normal life. From all of us at the BBC - to
all of you who played your part in helping secure Alan's freedom - thank you.
________________________________________________________________________
One of many tributes follows
from a noted Middle East correspondent
[Stephen Farrell is The Times Middle East Correspondent. He has reported from Gaza before and after Alan Johnston’s abduction. Reprinted as a tribute to Alan, with acknowledgements and thanks to author and newspaper]
In Gaza there is nowhere to
run, nowhere to hide. Alan Johnston knew that. No one goes to Gaza for career
advancement. It is not a route to the big black chair, to editor status or to
“Scud Stud” glory, to six-figure publishers’ advances and your picture on the
cover of a glossy book.
But still he went willingly
into the increasingly dangerous Palestinian coastal strip to live among 1.3
million people and report their narrative to the world, knowing that some would
be hostile to any foreign presence — or willing to exploit him — and that he
could be seized at any time.
He did so because he is a professional
journalist. It is what he does. He is good at it. And in a world of armchair
punditry and backseat expertise he is out there providing the raw data and
first-hand reporting upon which rests the huge inverted pyramid of the modern
global media.
Reporting on the Middle East
conflict is bad enough at the best of times — and these are not the best of
times. At any given moment journalists are caught between two ruthless and
highly armed adversaries who have no front lines. In Jaffa Street in Jerusalem
or Izz al-Din al-Qassam Street in Gaza City, the front line can move invisibly
toward you at the speed of a bus-bound Hamas suicide bomber or an Israeli
helicopter missile.
In recent months the risk of
being caught between the two historic foes has multiplied, as the Palestinians’
Gaza factions fight each other for control of a claustrophobic, coastal strip
40km by 8km, all but sealed off from the outside world by Israeli gunboats,
F16s, tanks and soldiers.
In such a three-way conflict
you can reduce the body of risk, but only a fool thinks you eliminate it. Alan
is not a fool. He and the BBC chose not to go down the road of armed guards,
making the calculation — presumably — that the risks of being killed in a
shootout between inexpert gunmen high on panic and bravado are higher than
those of a fatal outcome to the very scenario that now plays itself out. It is
a legitimate calculation, in a place where there are no 100 per cent answers.
There are individual
precautions you can take and Alan took all of them, indeed discussed them
daily, if not hourly, with his bosses and other colleagues. Don’t follow the
same routine, don’t advertise your movements in advance, don’t offend public
morality in a religious society — especially Gaza, where alcohol, sexual
indiscretions or casual blasphemy invite disapproval and worse.
Experience of conflict
zones, which Alan has in abundance, makes you wary of that impulsive dash to
the sound of a newsworthy bang without considering the consequences, the
pitfalls, the risk/reward ratio of exposure on the streets in the more
internecine neighbourhoods of Gaza.
But the moment came, as we
all knew it could, and he was taken. Many will speculate about who and why, and
many will have their own agendas for doing so.
From Day 1 attention has
focused, rightly or wrongly, on one notorious Gaza clan with previous “form”
thought to be holding him as a bargaining counter to secure their demands in a
complex feud. But for outsiders to rehearse who, why and how helps little, and
can prove hugely counter-productive if the speculation floats to the wrong ear,
or worse still onto the airwaves.
Gaza is a political onion
into which the most experienced correspondents may penetrate a few layers.
Beyond that, the facts are buried centuries deep in a complex interplay of
relationships fuelled by considerations of families, tribes, individuals,
politics, finances, vendettas, rivalries and agendas that are impenetrable even
to many West Bank Palestinians, never mind Arab outsiders — and least of all
foreign outsiders.
Above all: do no harm. In
this satellite television age, whoever is holding him is almost certainly
watching today’s broadcasts, reading newspaper articles and may be provoked to
anger by a wrong word here or there.
Outside Fallujah in April
2004, as my own Baathist captors served up chicken seasoned with menace and
reassurances, my most fervent hope was that each time they left the room they
wouldn’t return half an hour later infuriated by some glib besuited politician
deciding that his law-and-order credentials would be boosted by spraying
unhelpful words like “terrorist” and “criminal” around the airwaves.
Once you have built a
relationship with your captors — as Alan with his local expertise and knowledge
of Arabic almost certainly has — the last thing you want is that bubble,
however fragile, to be burst from the outside. In such circumstances, facing a
Kalashnikov and masked captor, your mind accelerates to 1,000 calculations a
second. Say this, or that. Try this gambit, that negotiating tactic. If I jump
through this car window will the fall kill me? Or is it better to take my
chances with a handcuff and a radiator?
If they ask, am I religious?
Or not? Is it better, if I am religious, to be Christian, or does that carry
the connotation of “crusader”? If I say secular, is that incomprehensible to
them? What do I think about Saddam Hussein, or Yassir Arafat?
And so on, for hours in my
case, days in Alan’s. Whatever their motives, the abductors are already deep in
a mindset that their grievances outweigh any considerations for the liberty of
one foreigner in their midst. Yet they face general opprobrium, not least
because Alan’s is a familiar face.
The abductors will by now be
feeling the pressure. Hospitality in Arabic society is almost a sacrament.
Everyone else in Gaza is profoundly embarrassed, ashamed and angry at them for
bringing an unwelcome spotlight on to their fragmented, dysfunctional society.
There are levers of
influence. Those who have spent a month trying to secure Alan's release have
been working the splintered branches of the Palestinian Authority and power
brokers inside, outside or half-inside it from Day 1. To what effect, it is
impossible to tell.
At the outset one prominent
Palestinian broker sighed: “This is going to be a long one.” He has,
unfortunately, been proved right.
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