Journalists stay on war path with guilty thrill

There comes a moment in the day of a war reporter when you find yourself staring down a long, empty road. Down this road, beyond the next bend, an ambush might be waiting. Or maybe tomorrow's front page.

There's no way of knowing. The soldiers at the last checkpoint tell you they have no idea. Nor does anybody else. Going further is up to you.

The Financial Times journalist killed this week in East Timor appears to have had this dilemma. You can stay put, under UN protection, and get an average story. Or you can go out, beyond the line, and maybe get a better one.

Of course, the journalists who are this weekend tramping around East Timor, like those in Kosovo, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda or the Middle East, take precautions. They have a sort of rudimentary fieldcraft, though few were on training courses and must learn things on-the-job.

Obviously, if there is fighting on that road ahead, all but the mad - and there are a few of these, generally camera operators - will stay away. Flak jackets and helmets can save lives, as does knowing basic first aid. It's best also to stay on tarmac roads - dirt tracks are easily mined.

Likewise, it's bad practice to pick up souvenirs, such as spent cartridge casings, or to explore abandoned buildings, though most of us have done it. Also, it is best to listen to advice from other reporters and locals.

We also avoid wearing military gear and never carry a gun - many armies suspect journalists are really spies and finding such things only confirms it.

Yet if you refuse to go down every road labelled "dangerous" you won't go down many roads. The logical conclusion is that you are better off keeping away from war.

Even listening to advice can lead to problems. In Moldova in 1992, Russian troops assured me that just such a road, leading to a local town, was safe. Instead, we drove into a group of shattered vehicles and dead soldiers - a military convoy ambushed in error by its own side some hours before.

A variation on this came last year: Serb soldiers in Kosovo assured us that we could drive through a wood on to the next position. We did so - and the next position turned out to be full of very surprised, very nervous guerrillas.

Coming back, the soldiers laughed - they said they had known that was the front line - but they wanted to see what would happen to us as we drove across noman's land. Later, it seemed very funny, part of the black humour which never gets into the movies but which blankets every war I have reported on.

THE disadvantages of this lifestyle are obvious. Not only are there dangers to life and limb but there are also the horrors. In the weeks after NATO moved into Kosovo, bodies in varying states of decay were strewn across western Kosovo. Worst of all are the hospitals, where you see the traumatised and the grotesquely wounded trying to accept their fate.

But neither the prospect of enduring horrors or injury will deter reporters from continuing to take these risks. The reasons are partly to do with career - few stories get as much coverage as war stories.

There is, of course, a more noble motivation. Reporters like to right wrongs, especially when we find our own leaders turning a blind eye to the suffering we see around us. But mostly we do it for the thrill. Not the thrill of being shot at but of being there.

There is no thrill like it - being in the middle of this incredible enterprise. It is a guilty thrill - we are enjoying something that is so terrible for most of the people involved. But a thrill it is and after a few months in "normality" there come the pangs to go back, to be once again at the centre of things, standing at the end of that long, empty road with that bitter-sweet uncertainty waiting around the next bend.