Briton Apparently First of African Descent to Die
Two members of a CBS News team were killed today in Iraq, including veteran cameraman Paul Douglas, who has apparently become the first black journalist to die in the war.
CBS said Douglas and soundman James Brolan, 42, were killed and correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was seriously injured when the U.S. Army unit in which they were embedded was attacked.
“They were on a patrol with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, when their convoy was attacked. They were reporting a ‘routine’ story, covering American troops for Memorial Day. The trio was only planning to be out for a few hours, in order to get back to the CBS Baghdad bureau in time to edit their piece,” according to a report on the CBS News Web site.
“Following what the U.S. military is calling a ‘curious incident’ in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad, Dozier, Douglas and Brolan got out of their armored vehicle. That’s when a nearby car packed with explosives detonated. Douglas and Brolan died at the scene.
CBS correspondent Byron Pitts, who worked with Douglas in Iraq, told Journal-isms today that Douglas “was a good man. He was professional. He was not one to take unnecessary risks. He was as experienced a newsman as they come.” Pitts described the cameraman as a big, broad-shouldered man with a shaved head who always had a smile on his face and was “just a great, great travel companion.
“He knew the world very well. It’s a real loss for our profession,” Pitts said.
CBS correspondent Allen Pizzey said on the CBS News Web site:
“By the very nature of their job as a camera crew, Paul and James took more risks than other journalists. A 20-plus pound camera on your shoulder makes you obvious, and vulnerable. For one thing you are blind on one side, and staring mostly ahead of you on the other, although good cameramen like Paul shot with one eye in the view finder watching the shot and the other somehow roving about for danger, or a better image.
“He would rely on James to watch his back, but a soundman is also burdened with a mixer around his neck, dials to monitor, and a microphone to point, because no one wants silent movies.”
Douglas, who was British, was 48 years old and “had worked for CBS News in many countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Rwanda and Bosnia, since the early 1990s. He leaves behind a wife, two daughters and three grandchildren,” the CBS statement said.
The Web site of the Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial, which lists those killed covering the news, shows no black journalists who died in Iraq.
“This is a devastating loss for CBS News,” said Sean McManus, president, CBS News and Sports, in a statement. “Kimberly, Paul and James were veterans of war coverage who proved their bravery and dedication every single day. They always volunteered for dangerous assignments and were invaluable in our attempt to report the news to the American public.”
On the “CBS Evening News,” reporter David Martin said, “Shortly after they set out, the soldiers and the CBS News crew got out of their humvees to inspect an Iraqi check point. That’s when the car bomb went off. Douglas and Brolan died there in the street. Dozier was medevaced to the emergency room in the green zone just a mile away.”
Of Dozier, correspondent Mark Phillips said: “Doctors are keeping her sedated and on a respirator, but they say she’s in much better shape than when she came in. As soon as it’s safe to move her, she will leave Iraq the same way so many wounded soldiers have: aboard a US military transport plane to a hospital in Germany. . . . Doctors successfully removed the shrapnel from her head and it did not penetrate her brain, so that does not appear to be life-threatening. The serious injuries are to her lower body.” [CBS announced early Tuesday that Dozier arrived at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany and will receive further medical treatment at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
[The network said at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday that Dozier “is resting comfortably today after receiving further treatment for injuries to her head and legs at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. We are encouraged by reports from Dozierâ??s doctors about the outcome of her recent surgeries. She will continue to be evaluated and is expected to remain at Landstuhl for several more days.”]
Phillips gave this short tribute to Douglas:
“It was Paul’s smile, the one that never seemed to leave his face no matter what horror he was witnessing. And from Bosnia to Afghanistan, from Rwanda to the Palestinian territories to Iraq, there were few horrors of recent history that Paul Douglas had not witnessed. Paul was one of those people you wanted around when things got dicey. He could charm his way through hostile country, he could defuse the belligerent tension at an armed roadblock. He would get the reluctant to tell you their story. Paul could disarm anyone with his good natured ways, given the chance. Today he had no chance. Paul Douglas was 48 years old when his luck ran out on a Baghdad street. He leaves a wife, two daughters, three grandchildren, and an elderly mother behind.”
And former anchor Dan Rather recalled:
“Paul was a tall, strapping Brit of African heritage, a great bear of a man with a smile as wide as the Thames. He looked like an athlete, and moved like one. He had the broad shoulders and thick legs of an American football tight-end or British rugby lineman. But he was quick and agile, and could (and often did) run fast for long distances carrying heavy equipment.
“He started with CBS News in London as a sound technician â??- a soundman, in the parlance of the craft. I remember once back in the early-to-mid 1990s when he was working sound as part of a three-man team â?? cameraman, soundman, correspondent-anchor. We were in the hellhole that was Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.
“On the outskirts of the city, we had made our way through a maze of trenches, then through dense woods and finally to an overlook to record some heavy fighting. On the way back in, an opening along the backside of the hill, we heard the eerie, slight ‘woosh’ of an arching, incoming shell.
“We stopped, dropped and rolled trying for cover. There was none. The incoming ordinance hit the ground right in the midst of us, within a few feet of us. It hit with a thud and a sizzling, fizzling sound. Paul, with his sound gear still hanging on his neck and chest, rolled over and tried to cover me with his body as the weapon sizzled. Lucky for all of us, it never exploded . For whatever reason, it turned out to be a dud.
“We didn’t stick around to find out why. Back at our partially bombed-out old downtown hotel, Paul and I shared an adult beverage and talked about what had happened. I asked him why he had done it.
“‘Don’t exactly know,’ he said with a smile. “Except . . . well, you know, there’s a bond. In this kind of place, in this line of work, there’s a bond. We look after one another, we cover for each other.'”
Martin noted: “The explosion that hit the CBS News team was not the only or even the deadliest blast to go off in Iraq on this Memorial Day. It was one of eight that killed at least 33 people, most of them Iraqis.”
- Photo essay on the tragedy (CBS News) [Added May 30]