Journalists say they prefer risk of beheading in Syria than reporting Ebola U.S. Journalist with Ebola Highlights Special Terror Reporters Face Covering Disease Pandemic Many say they would prefer to cover Syria with risk of capture & beheading than “not knowing where the enemy is” lurking By Nate Thayer October 6, 2014 An American journalist stricken with the Ebola virus in Liberia has highlighted the unique dangers faced by reporters covering the rapidly growing disease pandemic, many of whom say they feel safer covering the wars in Syria where colleagues are routinely publicly beheaded. A number of American journalists who worked alongside Ebola stricken freelance reporter Mukpo Ashoka in Liberia, who arrived by chartered medical airplane in Nebraska today, are now back in the United States and in self imposed quarantine, according to interviews with more than a dozen journalists, UN and humanitarian aid officials in West Africa. “It is apocalyptic. Bodies in the streets, bodies being dumped everywhere…no hospital to go to,” said Staton Winter, the Liberian based chief photographer for the World Health Organization. Winter left Liberia recently with his pregnant wife. “I wouldn’t call it apocalyptic, but it is hellified,” said Washington Post staff photographer Michel Du cille who returned last week from a 12 days assignment in Liberia covering the Ebola crisis. “The rules are don’t touch anything. Don’t shake anyone’s hands. So if the person falls on the ground, no one can touch them or help them. That touch becomes dangerous. So that person will probably die where they fell and they are laying on the street. We would see day after day someone lying on the ground dead for hours, sometimes for days. That is the reason why everyone calls it apocalyptic.” While he was diagnosed as infected with Ebola immediately after beginning work for NBC News, Ashoka likely contracted the deadly virus while on assignment for VICE News, agree numerous sources in Africa, Europe, and the U.S. who worked with the afflicted American. But VICE news has made no public comment acknowledging that the stricken journalist was likely in their employ when he contracted the Ebola virus. Ashoka was on contract with VICE, a U.S. based news outlet, from at least September 17th through the 23. VICE News refused to provide any comment for this article, despite repeated messages left with several senior news executives and their public relations department since last Friday. Mukpo Ashoka, who was working for NBC News when he was diagnosed with Ebola last Thursday, lived on and off in Monrovia for three years and left Liberia late Sunday on a NBC paid for chartered private jet arriving at a Nebraska hospital Monday. He had worked for numerous media outlets since returning to Liberia September 4, most recently for NBC News, VICE media, Al Jazeera America and the Washington Post. Veteran war and conflict correspondents say that covering the burgeoning Ebola pandemic is uniquely terrifying. And freelance journalists, who have long comprised the overwhelming bulk of reporters working on the front-lines in the world’s danger zones, face particularly daunting problems as they mostly are not covered by adequate health insurance. Several of the journalists just returned from Liberia say no one has contacted them from the U.S. government, that they have inadequate health insurance, and in some cases those media outlets who commissioned them to go to Liberia and report on the burgeoning pandemic are balking on paying them while they are in self-imposed quarantine, despite several of them having worked directly with the stricken American freelancer at the time he is likely to have been infected with Ebola. NBC news took responsibility for Ashoka’s care as “a member of our team” immediately upon his diagnosis on Thursday–an action that both surprised and was commended by many journalists covering the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. Ashoka had only formally signed on as a “fixer” for the incoming NBC crew 48 hours before he was diagnosed. “On Tuesday, he started working for us. On Wednesday, he said he wasn’t feeling well. On Thursday he tested positive,” said NBC News medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman from Liberia on Sunday. “My suspicion is that he was infected before we met him and then he became symptomatic once we met him.” According to more than a dozen journalists who worked with Ashoka in Liberia in recent days, as well as Ebola medical specialists, the consensus is he was likely infected with Ebola while working for VICE news. VICE released an un-bylined story on Ashoka on October 3, two days after VICE management had been informed their contracted reporter had been diagnosed with Ebola, but made no mention of the widely held opinion by health workers and journalists that Ashoka contracted the virus while employed by VICE. “Mukpo, who had tirelessly covered the Ebola outbreak from the heart of the epidemic for Al Jazeera, the Washington Post, and NBC News, was working with NBC News Health Correspondent Nancy Snyderman’s team for approximately 72 hours before he realized he felt sick, according to NBC News,” wrote VICE, neglecting to mention that the stricken reporter was employed by VICE immediately prior to working for NBC. More pointedly, there was no mention of the fact that, according to the virus transmission timetable provided by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and the UN World Health Organization, Ashoka likely was infected with Ebola while working for the New York City based media outlet–something widely accepted by both VICE management and their reporters, according to sources within VICE and more than a dozen other reporters and photographers interviewed who have been in Liberia in recent days......(for complete story, documents, and photos see link below or nate-thayer)
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 23:09:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015