Talking Heads
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by Meb Journal Staff
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In covering the war on Lebanon, were you able to separate yourself from the story?
Nancy El Sabeh
New TV
 I was not covering a political debate or parliamentary elections. Unfortunately, this was a vicious war where thousands of people were slaughtered and displaced, not to forget the major destruction of infrastructure. Being a Lebanese reporter, I could not be objective and separate myself from the story, for the war was taking place on my soil and the enemy was attacking our families, friends and the whole country. Obviously, I was siding with Lebanon because I wouldn’t sympathize nor side with the enemy in this case. For me, objectivity in this specific war resided in showing the atrocities that resulted from the Israeli attacks against my country.
Sultan Sleiman
LBCI
 I didn’t. We are human beings, and the war concerns us directly. It was on our land and it was an attack on our children, women, the elderly and the innocent. In this situation, we can’t be objective. However because of the nature of the enemy, saying the truth was enough. Being objective is telling the truth and that’s what I did. We reported on what the Resistance said and what the enemy said. We used certain terms in describing specific events, like the word “massacre,” but how else can you describe Qana and the killing of children? If this is considered biased reporting, I am a biased journalist. But I don’t consider it bias when an F16 plane hits children, and we describe the killing as a “massacre.” I am a journalist who has a human message that I should convey.
Najwa Kassem
Al Arabiya
 To be honest, I didn’t separate neither myself, nor my feelings while I reported on this war. I didn’t even bother thinking about this issue. Although I work for a pan-Arab channel, I am Lebanese. I used to live in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut, and my family lives there too. We have relatives there; my mother is also from the South and all her family lives there. I felt I was personally involved in this war. I was worried all the time. I followed up on the news not just for journalistic purposes but also for personal reasons. I was always in fear that I would hear the name of a relative among the casualties.
I was also mad at the Western media and their coverage. They came to Lebanon with a preconceived notion. They came with their own biases. So I said to myself, why should I be any different, especially that this is my country. Why shouldn’t I present our point of view?
Ben Wedeman
CNN
 I don’t separate myself from the story. That’s why I do the story. I believe you should try to listen to what people are saying, try to understand them, to sympathize with what they are going through. So I don’t separate myself from the story (but) I try to remain objective. Whether there is war or peace, every side will try to influence your perspective, giving you information that is not necessarily correct. Therefore, you try to weigh the information and make your judgment upon the basis of how reliable you think the information is. I believe we should be close to the story but not be the story. I don’t believe, for example, that journalists or TV reporters should have pictures of themselves, I think they should have pictures of the story they are doing. These days, and in many TV networks, they like to show reporters doing this and doing that. I don’t like that at all.
Bushra Abdel Samad
Al-Jazeera
 I was not able to separate myself from the story during my coverage of Israel's war on Lebanon. However, when a reporter is on the battlefield, her job is to report the facts, speak about the casualties without offering political analyses all the time. Her personal views might come across through the way she describes the victims and the destruction. In this case, she cannot be considered unprofessional for sympathizing with the victims and the displaced and every suffering person. A reporter is a human being, and she cannot hold her emotions at the sight of slaughtered babies and other victims, and she cannot refuse to help trapped citizens in the villages by transmitting their messages to the Red Cross. I believe it's hard for a reporter on the battlefield to be objective in the very strict and professional sense of the word.
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