One of the world’s leading photojournalists discusses her career in conflict zones and tells the story of how she captured a famous, horrific image while under fire in Ukraine.
Lynsey Addario analyses the challenges of war photography in an era when journalists are increasingly likely to be targets and false images on social media make it difficult to assess what is real. She also shares her perspective on the pictures coming out of the war in Gaza and the courage of those capturing them.
Plus, Alan and Lionel discuss the latest phone hacking headlines: court success for Prince Harry, plus allegations about the role of Sir William Lewis, who is set to become CEO of The Washington Post.
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Media Confidential is a podcast from Prospect.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Lionel Barber:
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Alan Rusbridger:
Hello and welcome to Media Confidential Prospect Magazine's weekly exploration of the fascinating and contested world of media. I'm Alan Rusbridger.
Barber:
I'm Lionel Barber. On this episode, one of the world's top photojournalist, Lynsey Addario, talks to us about her career on the front line and the story behind perhaps the defining image of the war in Ukraine so far.
Addario:
We came across the street, it was still very tense and the area was still obviously under fire, and I came upon the feet of these four bodies, and I was in shock, and I was trying to figure out what was before me. I zeroed in on these little moon boots and I thought, “Oh, Jesus. I have a child. That's a child.” It dawned on me that I was looking at the bodies of what I thought was a family.
Rusbridger:
We discussed the challenges of being a conflict photographer in an age of disinformation and social media, and she has fascinating perspectives about the journalism and images coming out of Gaza.
Barber:
Listen and follow us wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. Media Confidential is on X slash Twitter. We are @MediaConfPod.
Rusbridger:
Lionel, welcome to London. You're an infrequent visitor to these shores nowadays, but anyway, it's very nice to see you in person.
Barber:
Nice to be back, Alan.
Rusbridger:
So, I think you got back just as the phone hacking scandal burst back into life with the judgement in favour of Prince Harry. What did you make of that?
Barber:
Well, Prince Harry, after a number of legal reverses, has got maybe, I don't know what you'd say, two-thirds of a good judgement here. He's certainly got a judge to find that the Mirror group under the editor then, Piers Morgan was engaged in phone hacking, and the suggestion, in fact it's probably more than that, the charges that Piers Morgan is well-aware of what was going on. I must say I was at the pub, the party on Friday night in Kensington with Piers Morgan and a bunch of media people and few celebrities just happened to be there and he vigorously denies it and it issued a blistering statement there too.
Rusbridger:
Well, hold on a minute, because I listened to a statement and it's quite a narrow denial in my view. What he said was, “I never hacked a phone myself, “ well, as if any editor would, “and I never asked anybody to do that." What he's not denying, and I think he can't deny now because the judge has more or less said it's completely implausible to deny that he was aware of phone hacking, there are a number of instances where he's actually instructed people how to hack phones or warned them that their phones could be hacked. So I think we can take it that he knew it was going on and that places him, I think, in some jeopardy. The victims of phone hacking are now saying the police must investigate him. I think that's why his denials now have got more narrow.
Barber:
I wouldn't like to come across as Piers Morgan's defence attorney here. I agree with you. It's a narrow denial. By the way, that is the formula that he's been sticking to for a number of years, that it may have gone on, but he didn't know about it. He certainly never instructed anybody, but he insists that he's ready to fight. He was never asked to appear in court. He does expect this legal wrangle to go on though.
Rusbridger:
I think there are two reasons why this story won't go away, three reasons. One is obviously the queue of people who have been hacked, who are guaranteed usually six-figure sums because, certainly, news doesn't want any of these cases to come into court. The second is that Leveson 2, the second part of the Leveson inquiry, which was supposed to deal with this, was scrapped under pressure from the newspaper industry. So actually, this is really the only way of bringing this stuff out into the open. Whether it would've been better to just have a clean sweep and do it all in Leveson 2, I don't know, but it was Matt Hancock as Culture Secretary who killed it off, and you could only imagine the pressure he was under.
The third is that there are people still at the top of the newspaper industry in this country or the media industry, Pier Morgan's one of them, whose names keep coming up in the documentation. You have to say that Rebekah Brooks at News is another. She was put back in as CEO of News UK as it's now called. So she's in charge of the Times, but also The Sun and also Talk TV, so she's hired Piers Morgan. You think as long as these people whose best defence is, “I had no idea what was going on in my own company,” are back in charge, then it's unlikely to go away. I'm wondering, Lionel, if you can think of a single industry where things had gone as badly and catastrophically wrong as they did over phone hacking would still have the same chief executive in charge.
Barber:
Well, the restoration to power of Rebekah Brooks was quite extraordinary, as you know. She did face trials, she was acquitted, but Rupert Murdoch's extraordinarily close to her, loyal to her, and that's why she came back in, but of course, many, many, many questions about what she knew and when she knew it.
Rusbridger:
We should just add one thing that's actually breaking as we're on air as it were, Lionel, which is National Public Radio in the United States has written a piece about Will Lewis, the former Telegraph editor who was until recently bidding for the Telegraph and has now gone in as publisher of the Washington Post. National Public Radio has done some reporting on how his name has cropped up in recent court actions about phone hacking. The nub of the accusation is that Will Lewis, and we should declare that we both know Will, he was sent in as the, quotes, “the cleanup guy” after the phone hacking scandal really broke into the open in 2011. The NPR story says that, quotes, “Lewis made,” quotes, “false, misleading and/or materially incomplete statements' to the police.” That essentially in essence, he was part of the coverup instead of being the cleanup guy.
Barber:
He was brought in by News Corporation to work directly with Rebekah Brooks, as you say, to be the fireman cleanup person. Also, the allegation is that some 30 million emails were lost, were raised after he came in. Now, some of that process was underway, but of course, when people said, “Where are the emails before 2008?” all of this had gone, and this was part of what Lewis described in an email as email migration.
Rusbridger:
Will Lewis has quoted in the story as not wanting to comment, and I know that he's denied these kinds of accusations in the past, so we have to say that and we have to say that these are just allegations that have appeared in the litigation and haven't been tested in court, but potentially, it's one to watch because it's potentially embarrassing for Lewis in his new role. You and I know, Lionel, that American papers are very high ethical standards.
Barber:
Allegations only, but he will face some very awkward questions, I think, in coming days, and I'm sure Jeff Bezos as owner of the Washington Post, who personally brought in, and by the way, I've known William Lewis for 25 years. He worked for me. He is knighted. We should call him Sir William Lewis, Bezos, I'm sure, will be asking questions about this and they're very serious allegations.
Rusbridger:
The other interesting thing this week was the culture committee's verdict on Samir Shah. We talked a bit about this last week, but unusually, I think, for such a committee, it came out with a very lukewarm endorsement of Shah. This is Samir Shah, who will probably be the ex-chairman of the BBC, but they said, “Okay, he's appointable, but we're not convinced he's made of strong enough material to stand up to the BBC leadership, which is his job.” That mirrors, I think, what we were saying last week that on paper he's got a good pedigree, but it's a testing ground. He was asked all these questions about Robbie Gibb and other things and really dodged them. The members said, “We want him back within three months if he gets the job to really put the thumb screws on him.”
Lionel Barber:
Well, it sounds like I'm going to be the defence attorney for this podcast here, but Samir was clearly advised, “Don't make any headlines. Be low key. Don't antagonise the committee.” Yes, he comprehensively flunked the Robbie Gibb test that you've set up correctly these past few weeks. I was talking to a university president last week in New York after the catastrophic performance of the MIT head, Harvard head, and UPenn head facing questions about whether they were tolerating antisemitism on campus. Of course, they also gave loyally answers and got absolutely hammered. I suspect Shah has decided he'd play even safer, and so he's also got mildly hammered. He'll be back. I think he becomes chair, but he'll be back in front of that committee.
Rusbridger:
Don't forget the special offer from ProspectMagazine, which means you can enjoy Prospect's journalism for a full month absolutely free. You can read all the best long reads, commentary and cultural criticism with new writing added daily to our website, as well as the entire 28-year archive. Take advantage of this great deal by searching for Prospect one month free trial.
Barber:
Well, Alan, we've got a special guest on now, the distinguished and experienced war photographer, Lynsey Addario. She's been on the ground doing unbelievably courageous and top class work in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya, Iraq. She's been kidnapped twice. She is a freelancer, but often works for the New York Times, cited for the Pulitzer.
Rusbridger:
I'm a huge admirer and I'm so pleased that she came on. I love the humanity in her work as she's about to tell us. Of course, she does the tanks and the guns and the bombs and the missiles, but she's always looking for the human victims of war, and that's what I think makes her work so powerful.
Barber:
We spoke to Lynsey Addario a couple of weeks ago, and I started by asking her about photojournalism in an age of disinformation and with an increasing number of reasons to potentially distrust images, especially on social media.
Addario:
It is, of course, a very challenging time. I've been covering conflict for over two decade all around the world. I think the first struggle started with the fake news quote. We had leaders around the world who weren't happy with the coverage or who didn't welcome journalist coverage of whatever conflict or whatever was a unfolding in their countries, and so they just sort of discredited journalists by saying, “That's fake news.” Now, we have the issue of AI, where images are actually fabricated to look like reality.
So I think there are several challenges going on in addition to the actual challenge of trying to cover a conflict, getting access to a conflict, being able to report freely without being targeted by various governments and killed. I myself have been taken hostage twice while covering, while doing my job as a journalist in Libya and in Iraq in 2004 right outside of Fallujah. I'm one of the lucky ones who actually survived. Our driver in Libya did not. So I think there are many challenges, of course, to being a war correspondent and a war photographer.
Rusbridger:
The immunity that journalists used to have, it used to be the case, maybe this is ancient history now, that people would not be targeted, would not target journalists. That seems to have gone completely now.
Addario:
This is a podcast so you can't see me smirking and smiling back here, but I would say I probably haven't had press on my flak jacket or anywhere visible in years because even covering the war in Ukraine, Russians have targeted journalists, and we have been told in no uncertain terms that it's more dangerous to wear the sign press or to have press written on our vehicles than not. There was the war in Syria where the kidnapping was quite high, and so the best sort of defence for me would be to wear full hijab and to look like a local woman. So I think every conflict is very different. I would say in Israel, Gaza, I would wear press sign if I were sent there. I have not been sent there during this conflict, but I think it's every conflict is different and you have to make a judgement call.
Rusbridger:
We had the great Don McCullin on, and I'm sure you've heard Don speak in the past and maybe you heard that episode where he was very conflicted in thinking about his motivation for what he was doing. I asked him that famous picture of Merrick Marine throwing a grenade, and I was trying to imagine the risk he had put himself in in getting that picture. He was very frank and he said, “Well, we wanted to be Robert Capa. We wanted that picture of an American soldier.” It was the glory. He said it was very mixed, he's 88 now, about what his motivation was. What's your motivation for putting yourself in these positions of incredible risk to yourself?
Addario:
I think my motivation primarily is in bearing witness to what's happening on the ground, to what's actually happening on the ground because as we've discussed, governments and people have their own message. They want to get out and they perpetuate a reality that sometimes doesn't exist. So I think for me as a photographer, I'm always going there to document the reality, to document civilian casualties, human rights abuses, humanitarian crises, and to ultimately hold leaders accountable to what's happening on the ground for their policies.
It's also in the historical context, I think it's important to have a record of what's going on and to educate the public. I think that there are various reasons. Don is an incredible photographer as was Robert Capa, and there are so many incredible frontline photographers out there working like that. That is not my forte, being in the trenches with the troops. I will do it, I have done it for many years, but I don't think that's where I excel as a photographer. I think for me it's more about documenting the civilian toll and really showing the cost of war on women and children and innocent people.
Barber:
Lynsey, how do you feel about the images that have been shown, first of all, about the October 7th atrocities? How would you feel about publishing those or taking the photograph?
Addario:
Well, look, what happened on October 7th was horrific. It was a horrific terrorist attack, and I think it's important for the public to understand the extent of that attack, especially because it has led to this ongoing bombardment of Gaza. So I think it's important for people to understand the context and how bad it really was. In terms of the images, it's difficult because I think the public becomes inured to these scenes of violence, and now we're seeing horrific scenes coming out of Gaza of babies being pulled out of the rubble and women and children just dead and injured day after day. I do this for a living and I can barely look at these images. So I get worried that perhaps the public will stop paying attention because they can't handle it. I think emotionally, it's extremely difficult to look at these images day in and day out.
Barber:
There were allegations by the Israelis that some photographers who'd been freelance for mainstream organisations had actually gotten alert about the attacks and had then gone in with some of the power militaries. Do you know anything about what may have happened there? The second question is, how would a photographer deal with such an invitation? Would you go along or would you say, “You know what? I'd be compromised if I did this”?
Addario:
First of all, that allegation, the Israeli government backtracked. They said, “Actually, we didn't really know that,” so they themselves corrected themselves and said, “We just threw it out there. “I think it was an incredibly irresponsible allegation because journalists risk their lives. We are out there and it basically just increases the attacks against journalists in a conflict where over 60 journalists have already been killed, mostly in Gaza, some in Israel, some in Lebanon. I think it's very important to not increase that rhetoric against journalists because we have a job to do. We are doing a service to the public.
I can say, obviously I was not there, I can't say what actually happened on the ground, but I can say that when I'm working in a war zone for whatever publication, usually it's the New York Times, but I'm freelance, the second I hear of something in a war zone, we run because it is very important to document things in the moment. The longer you hesitate as a war photographer, the more likely it will be that you will miss that moment and that you will miss your window to get access because things shut down. If it's an attack, if it's a bomb, whatever it is, a perimeter is generally set up very, very quickly after something happens.
I can't say in a vacuum how would I respond to an invitation. I would say I have embedded with the US military, I've embedded with militaries around the world, and they are going into hostile situations to find “insurgents”, quote, unquote and attack them. I jumped out of a helicopter in the middle of the night in the heart of Taliban territory in the Korangal Valley in 2007, and the goal was not to make friends with the Taliban. The goal was obviously to kill the Taliban.
So did I warn the Taliban? No. That's not my job as a journalist. My job as a journalist is to document what's happening. If I had gotten word that a terrorist attack was about to happen, I don't think I would just go along. I would probably warn someone. I would probably say something, but I don't think that journalists working in Gaza have that luxury because they don't have freedom of speech. They're not able to stand against Hamas. It is not a place in the world where there's free speech, and I think people need to be aware of that.
Barber:
Well, if I could just come in there, I don't think that's been made clear enough certainly early on in the reporting, nevermind the photojournalism. Alan?
Rusbridger:
I was going to take you back to what you were saying about the images and how it's important to confront people with the reality of war. So I wrote a comment last week, remembering the first Iraq war, which you'll be too young to certainly to have taken far in perhaps, even to remember, but there were virtually no images from that. So the terrible shoot up on the road to Basrah, and there was one image that the observer used, I'm sure you know it, of a charter Iraqi in a vehicle with almost like plasticine face, but nobody really used that picture because it was too horrific. Cut to today and on my Instagram feed, I'm following this photographer, Motaz Azaiza, in Gaza. I forced myself to watch it because I think it's our duty to confront ourselves with what's going on, but it is horrific. So talk about the morality of being forced to confront the war regardless of the political dimension.
Addario:
Look, I think there's a fine line because I think my goal as a photographer is to try to get people to pay attention, is to get them to ask questions, “What's going on? Why is this happening? How long can this go on? “ If the images are too graphic, people will turn away. So there's a fine line of how do you tell a story in a way that will garner the attention that you want but without turning people away. I think it's difficult because we have publications. We have the New York Times, The Observer, all of the publications around the world who make very difficult decisions every single minute of every day of what to publish, what is okay by standards, what is okay ethically. Can you show pictures of 10 dead children without knowing who they are and whether their parents will allow you to show that picture?
So these are decisions that are made, but the reality in today's world is that social media has overtaken everything, and it doesn't matter because those images get out no matter what. So I think it's okay for publications to uphold their standard, but at the end of the day, most people, most young people at least, get their information, their news, their photos on social media and on TikTok and on Instagram and on things that are not censored.
Rusbridger:
Do you think that's brought ... There's a difference, I think, between Western sensibilities and the sensibilities of other parts of the world where they're more used to confronting images of death, particularly in the Middle East.
Addario:
Absolutely. I used to struggle also when I covered the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004, and I wasn't that young. I was 50. So I covered the Iraq War in 2003 and 2004, and I did use to struggle with the fact that many publications would publish pictures of dead Iraqis without a lot of discussion and debate, yet pictures of dead American soldiers had to be monitored and signed off, and a waiver that you needed permission from the next of kin. So it felt like a double standard to me at that time. I think that also persisted in the war in Afghanistan and in Darfur, where I also covered, in Congo and Yemen and Somalia and Syria and Lebanon and Israel, all of these places that I've covered that there's always this struggle with, can you show pictures of dead civilians and is it more sensitive to show a dead American than someone else?
Barber:
Alan, I was struck by how Lynsey, in a funny way in this new age of disinformation, instant image, mass audience speed and scale, she's actually still pursuing the old virtues of actually being there first on the ground to take the first shots.
Rusbridger:
She's a hero, I think. As we get to the end of the year in media and all the bad things that we learn about journalism, which we can all rehearse in our sleep, the fact that there are these people who are so brave and who risk their lives purely to bear witness is one of the beacons of hope. There are not many organisations that still can afford to do it. There are not many journalists still willing to put their lives on the lines. There are not many wars that are, in a sense, coverable any longer, but as long as we have people like Lynsey who are willing to do that, I think we should be incredibly grateful for them.
Barber:
This is Media Confidential, and coming up more from the celebrated photojournalist, Lynsey Addario, including the incredible story behind one of the defining images of the war in Ukraine.
Rusbridger:
On the ProspectPodcast this week, our book's editor Peter Hoskin and our assistant editor Sarah Collins, debate the artistic merits of Love Actually in its 20th anniversary year.
Emily Lawford:
Pete, you don't like Love Actually. Why not?
Peter Hoskin:
No, I very much hate, actually. It's tremendously dated. It's like watching one of those very, very old Tom and Jerry cartoons or Popeye cartoons where they now put a warning at the beginning of them saying, “The views expressed in this cartoon are not simpatico with modern beliefs. “
Sarah Collins:
I couldn't agree less with what Pete just said. I love Love Actually because it was a film that I feel like defined my teenage years.
Rusbridger:
Follow and subscribe to the ProspectPodcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Barber:
This is Media Confidential with Alan Rusbridger and Lionel Barber. On this episode, we're featuring our interview with the celebrated conflict photographer Lynsey Addario, who tells us now about capturing one of the most horrifically memorable images of the war in Ukraine, which made the front page of the New York Times.
Addario:
I had seen images coming out of that area was basically the broken bridge linking Bucha and Irpin, the suburbs west of Kiev to Kiev. The Ukrainian military had broken that bridge intentionally to stop the Russian advance. As the fighting got more and more intense in Bucha and Irpin, more and more civilians started fleeing across that bridge. There was heavy, heavy fighting on the other side. On the side where I was toward Kiev, it was supposed to be, quote, unquote, “safer “ because it was a known civilian evacuation route. So I went early one Sunday morning in early March and was approaching the area, and I just had this feeling. Obviously, I've been covering conflict a very long time and I had this feeling like, “Actually, this feels quite dicey. This is definitely not safe by any means. “
So we were hugging the wall and trying to stay behind cover as we approached the bridge. Then we saw wounded. There were two wounded men. I think there were territorial defence with the Ukrainians being pulled to behind a wall. So we ran across the street, got cover behind this cement wall. I was photographing the stream of civilians from behind the cover of that wall because it just didn't feel safe to be exposed. I remember looking in my viewfinder as women were pulling their young children in little pink puffy coats, and pulling them across this bridge and back to relative safety, and I'm shooting and getting more and more furious as I'm shooting thinking, “These are kids, these are women. Can't they just keep the fighting elsewhere? “
Then suddenly, a round came in and it came in, I don't know, a few hundred metres off in the distance. I think it was a mortar round. So my security advisor Steve said, “Would you like to leave? “ and I said, “No. No. We have cover and we're in a civilian evacuation route. Let's stay. “ So very shortly after, another round came in and came in even closer. At that point I thought, “Okay, maybe they're actually bracketing onto the civilian evacuation route. “ Each time a round came in, I dove behind this brick wall for cover. I popped up and a third round came in literally 30 feet from us maximum. It was incredibly chaotic. I was stunned that, literally, they were actually targeting this route, but I still had no idea what had happened in that attack.
So it was chaotic, it was dusty. There was all this dust was kicked up from the round. The man, the territorial defence soldier who was near us disappeared in this cloud of smoke. So I thought he had been killed. So I was screaming obscenities and trying to figure out what was going on and shooting what I could from behind the safety of the wall. Then our security advisor Steve said, “Stay put, don't move. “ I was with Andriy Dubchak, who is an amazing Ukrainian videographer, photographer, and we were getting our bearings. I thought I had been hit by something because my whole neck was sprayed with gravel. So I didn't know if I had actually been hit with shrapnel. So I'm asking him, “Am I bleeding? “ and he's said, “No. “ So we checked each other out, and then Steve finally called us across the street.
When we came across the street, it was still very tense, and the area was still obviously under fire. I came upon the feet of these four bodies and I couldn't ... In my head, for some reason, I thought, “For sure they would only kill soldiers, “ because this was very early on in the war, and Putin had repeatedly said, “We do not target civilians and we will not kill civilians. “ So I came upon these bodies and I was in shock, and I was trying to figure out what was before me. I zeroed in on these little moon boots and I thought, “Oh, Jesus, I have a child. That's a child. “ It dawned on me that I was looking at the bodies of what I thought was a family.
My first instinct was to run and to not shoot just because it felt too graphic. It felt like there's no way the New York Times will ever run bodies of civilians, and this is a really dangerous place to be standing because we were fully exposed. Then I thought to myself, “No, wait a minute. I just witnessed the intentional targeting of civilians. I watched the runup. I have to take pictures. “ So I started shooting thinking to myself, “How can I shoot this in a way that it won't get censored or that I won't be told it's too graphic. “ So I took a few frames. I moved around to the other side, and then basically worked my way around the scene, taking a few frames in each place, and then ultimately took the photograph that appeared on the cover of the New York Times.
Then we made a run for it. We joined the civilian evacuees, and we just ran back to our car. A few more rounds came in as we were making our way to our car. We had to dive for cover again. Finally got out. I looked at the back of my camera when we got in the car trying to figure out, “Was I hallucinating? Did I really just witness this? “ Because in war, your mind plays tricks on you. For me, I always try to convince myself, “Oh, it wasn't really that dangerous. I'm fine. I wouldn't really put my life in danger that much. “ So I looked on the back of my camera and I realised what I had witnessed, and I immediately sent a message to the New York Times saying, “I've just been in this attack. We're fine. I have this. I really, really want you to try to consider running it, “ and then it basically was out of my hands.
Rusbridger:
That's an astonishing story, Lynsey. Can I ask you, I know this is a cliched question that you must be used to being asked, but how do you inoculate yourself from what you're seeing?
Addario:
I think in the moment it's easier for me in the moment when I'm shooting and I have a job to do and I have to make pictures and I have a camera in front of my face, and I'm very focused on trying to do what I need to do and obviously trying to stay alive. So do it from a position that will give me the most cover, but it's not like it blocks everything out, obviously, because I live with those images and I live with that moment for a long time after that. So I think in the moment, it's actually ironically easier because it's all very frantic and adrenaline, and I'm just very focused.
Rusbridger:
Had you look after yourself subsequently? What PTSD precautions do you take?
Addario:
Precautions, I talk about things very openly. I definitely do not internalise things. I communicate a lot about what I see and what I feel. I have an amazing family. My husband used to be a journalist, so we talk things through all the time. I think that's a really important part of my self-care is talking about things and processing them, really processing them not only in the moment but for a long time after. I think for me, also, there are things physically I do for my self-care that help. I exercise religiously, and that's something that, for me, helps my mental state. It helps keep me very balanced. I think I surround myself by really stable, wonderful people. I have an incredible community of not only journalists but loved ones.
Barber:
Do you see any of your work having an artistic dimension? We talked about the terrible beauty of war and Don's work captures that, that elements of humanity that you see in this terrible violence.
Addario:
It's an odd thing for me to be told my pictures are beautiful when I'm often documenting the most horrific moments, but I also do witness incredible beauty. I witness generosity, I witness resilience, I witness all these things that happen in war as well. I sell prints. I sell fine art prints. I have a gallery, and that presents conflict to me because it's like, “Here I am in these horrible places, yet people want my work to be hanging on their walls. What is that? “ For me, it's all about getting it out there and having people live with the things that I live with when I go to these places. Whether it's one split second that happens to be beautiful, whether it's that that reminds people or whether it's the overall story, to me, it's good to have the work out there.
Barber:
Well, full disclosure, we do have two of your prints in our cottage in the countryside, Lynsey, but having said that, what advice would you give to a young reporter photojournalist who's coming in now into journalism?
Addario:
It's not an easy profession, and it certainly is not a lucrative profession, but it is one that is rewarding in so many other ways. I have never had a moment since I was 21 and started photographing basically 30 years ago, where I've questioned my mission in life and what I'm doing as a journalist and as a photojournalist. I've been so driven to tell people's stories. I think in that sense, it's incredibly gratifying, and the feedback I get is also incredibly gratifying, but I would tell a young photographer that if you want to do this work, you have to give up everything else for some time because it takes over your life, and you cannot have a boyfriend or a girlfriend while you're starting out, and you can't think that you're going to get weekends off or you can't think that you can work 9:00 to 5:00. No. You work 24/7. You have to tell stories. You have to think about things. You have to be proactive. You have to think about the issues you care about, pitch stories, go there, save your money, borrow money, do whatever you need to do. I think it's important. It is not easy.
Rusbridger:
Can you talk a little about the democratisation of photography that anybody now with an iPhone can shoot a really good picture? As we've seen in Gaza, there are very few, if any, professional Western agencies working inside Gaza at the moment, but nevertheless, there's a flood of images, which are, in many ways, remarkable pictures being distributed very widely. How does that change photography?
Addario:
I would say no international journalists have been allowed into Gaza except with an Israeli escort, but the Palestinian photographers in Gaza have done an extraordinary job of documenting this war, which is often killing their own family members at the same time. So it's a very brave work. I would say about the democratisation of photography that it's wonderful people can use an iPhone and take really beautiful photos, but if you're consuming those photos as a source of information, you have to really know what the caption is. What is the background of that photo? Do not take things at face value because they're not trained journalists. Perhaps their loyalties are on a certain side. Perhaps they're not presenting the whole picture. So it's very important if you're consuming images to make sure you're consuming them without any background information and you're just consuming them as pictures and not as a source of information.
Rusbridger:
So the onus is on us as consumers of these pictures.
Addario:
I would curate your new source. Yes, if you want to use those photographs as a source of knowledge and information, you should know who is the person behind that picture and who are they and what is the background because you can't just assume that every picture is what it says it is.
Rusbridger:
What does your own Instagram feed look like?
Addario:
It's mostly stories that I'm covering. I can't just-
Rusbridger:
Sorry, I meant your consumption of Instagram. What do you look at?
Addario:
Oh, my consumption?
Rusbridger:
Yeah.
Addario:
A lot of journalists, a lot of photographers, some society people I follow very mindless feeds. Sometimes just when I'm in a war zone and I want to just not look at war, then I follow celebrity stuff or something.
Barber:
I do recommend Dame Helen Mirren's Instagram. It's very good.
Addario:
Oh, really? I follow some celebrities sometimes just if I'm literally sitting on the front line and I don't want to be thinking about war. I'll follow someone who has nothing to do with war.
Rusbridger:
Final thing, just on security, you've mentioned, I think, that the death toll in Gaza at the moment is above 60.
Addario:
Israel and Lebanon.
Rusbridger:
Israel and Lebanon. It seems a futile question, but how do you protect yourself? How do you stay alive?
Lynsey Addario:
One would hope that this discussion is being had at the highest levels of government around the world, that journalists are not targeted. I think what's happened is that most journalists who are killed doing their work are killed with impunity, and no one ever gets held accountable for killing journalists. Whether that was Marie Colvin in Syria. In Libya, there were journalists who were targeted and killed. I think there's a lot of discussion as to whether some of the journalists who have been killed in Lebanon and Gaza have been targeted.
I always have faith that people who make these decisions will not take them lightly, and that I can say I'm a journalist and I'll be protected. Obviously, as someone who's been kidnapped and beaten and sexually assaulted while taken hostage, I know that's not always the case, but I think, I guess we can keep ourselves informed about what's happening on the ground, where to be, where it's safest to be, whether we do put press, whether we don't put press, what cars to drive in, are we in armoured cars, what sort of flak jacket, helmet we could wear, where the nearest shelter is. We never travel with anyone who is armed. That's very important to point out because people always ask me, “Do I carry a weapon? “ No. I think we have to be very vocal about the fact that one journalist killed is one too many.
Rusbridger:
Is your fear that the cost of the security and the cost of the insurance in an industry where the money is running out or the money's not anywhere like it used to be will in the end make your job impossible?
Addario:
Well, basically at this point, I basically only cover war for the New York Times because they take security very, very seriously and they won't skimp on it. So I think for me, I make decisions of who I will cover dangerous assignments for. Of course, I worry. I worry that journalism is harder and harder to do and to get funding for my next assignment I'm doing in part with a grant from National Geographic. I think increasingly a lot of us are relying on grants because it's just there's very little money in journalism to send us the places we want to go. So I think we can take all the possible precautions and work for publications that are still taking this very seriously and taking responsibility for their people on the ground.
Rusbridger:
Well, that was so impressive. I'm on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the toll in Israel, Gaza at the moment is well over 60 journalists who have been killed, and that tells you about the courage that's needed to take these kinds of pictures.
Barber:
For me, what really was memorable was listening to Lynsey and the decision making under fire in the runup to taking those shots of the family so cruelly targeted by the Russians and killed in plain daylight. It's amazing to me that in that moment, really, a personal peril, grave personal peril, you got inside the mind of the photojournalist on the conflict scene, how she's weighing up risk, but also how she's weighing up the best shot, and there isn't a tension between the two. She's also trying to figure out the boundaries of what's tasteful or not, but also photographing reality. It is really astonishing.
Rusbridger:
Lionel, you must've had had the same experience as I did as an editor where you're sitting slightly helplessly in London as your journalists are out there doing incredibly dangerous things. I remember Maggie O'Kane, incredibly brave Guardian journalist, once ringing me up from a bus station in East Timor, very bloody conflict and saying, “Look, I just don't know where to go. I know there's fighting going on near where I am. I can get there. What do you think? “ I think as an editor, all you can say is no picture, no story is worth a life. I can't give you a judgement on the situation on the ground, but I think as an editor, you have the responsibility just to say, to give them permission not to cover the story if they're wavering.
Barber:
100%, Alan. I certainly had that conversation with reporters on the ground in conflict zones saying, “I do not want you taking a risk which will endanger your own personal life. The story isn't so important and so overwhelming that we end up with a victim at the FT as a reporter. “ So I have had one instance where a journalist on the front line, better not say who he was, but when I was news editor I actually said, “Look, I think you're obviously the best expert, but I don't think this sounds ... “ and then the phone went dead and he carried on anyway. Great journalist, but there we are.
Rusbridger:
I think to be fair, the training and there's a security backup is much better than it was certainly when I was sent to cover the Iran-Iraq war as somebody who'd never done any war training. I was wandering around this battlefield in Basrah, luckily came back in one piece. The very next day, there was a French photographer, had his foot blown off walking onto a mine, and nobody had told us about any of these risks. I think nowadays nobody gets sent to a war zone unless they've done hostile environment training.
Barber:
I certainly had a couple of times hostile environment. People around me, I remember in Pakistan, saw the head of the Pakistan Air Force was about to get on the Russian helicopter, fly down the SWAT Valley. Word got back home that the editor was on a Soviet helicopter and flying over Pakistan and word got back, “I don't think you should be doing this. “ I mentioned it to the correspondent. He said, “I've spent three weeks commandeering this helicopter. You're going. “
Rusbridger:
Anyway, none of this deflects from the unbelievable bravery and unwavering eye that Lynsey Addario has, and it's been great to have her on today.
If you've got any questions for us about the media, email them to mediaconfidential, all one word, @prospectmagazine, all one word, .co.uk and we'll answer a few of them in a future episode.
Barber:
Thank you for listening to Media Confidential brought to you by ProspectMagazine and Fresh Air. The producer is Danny Garlick.
Rusbridger:
Remember to listen and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
Barber:
We're on Twitter slash X too, @MediaConfPod.
Rusbridger:
Next Thursday's episode is the last one of the year. It's a review of the year with Sky News's Beth Rigby joining us. So don't miss that, and it's happy holidays from me.
Barber:
It's a happy holiday from me.
