Polish Based Encounter - Journalists
 

Afternoon all,

Attached piece is intended to offer material for a slightly different encounter in a Polish based campaign. It can also potentially be used as a source of NPC's to fill any skill gaps that the party may have.

Comments / feedback welcome as always

Really nice article (worryingly I recognize the BBC journalist - mybe he should have ambitions to become a politician?).

I would add a local fixer to the group.

Jan Fields(-Dixon) in Harold Coyle's books would make an interesting NPC - particularly in Mexico.

Not sure about the arming of journalists, particularly with the prevalence of marauders. Many journalists in Vietnam went armed and modern journalists frequently have bodyguards (worth noting Ross Kemp went through weapon training before going to Afghanistan although he noted this was unusual).

Radio Free Europe (see my article) is another source of jornalists.

Thanks James, thought the BBC bloke might ring a Bell with a few people (although it includes elements of at least one other who still works for the BBC, and if you change the gender another may spring to mind.

You're right about a fixer of course, and I should have included one. I may add one if I do an updated draft, although I have a few other things on the go at the moment. A "security advisor" / bodyguard is also a possibility, although I suspect a lot of them may have been called back into the armed forces (from where, I think, a lot of them originally come). A cameraman would also be a good addition I think. Some of them were real characters (and not in the RPG sense).

With regard to arming them, I wasn't aware that it was a common practice (most of the research / background for the article was based on reporting from the 1991 Gulf War onwards). That said, I have seen the Ross Kemp piece you're referring to, which I think would justify giving any journalist at least a minimal level of small arms skill. Also, I seem to recall that it was mentioned in that clip that journalists could bear arms in self defence (I seem to remember the implication was that if the unit he was embedded with was about to be overrun there was an expectation that he would arm himself).

Also, I want to thank Raellus for some suggestions concerning the original draft - cheers Rae.

Just something I cam up with, going on what we saw with the frist Gulf War

Embedded Journalism Team (Frontline)

Field Reporter
Cameraman
Soundman
Driver
Security Consulate
Public Affairs’ Officer (Optional)

Vehicle

SUV/Humvee

Remote Broadcasting Team (CINC HQ)

5 Technicians
Producer
Headquarters Journalism Team

Vehicles

Production Truck
5 SUV/Humvees – for Embedded Journalism Teams

That was the most obvious BBC character - mind you I am reading about Jugoslavia at the minute. Actually I would suggest the characters from "Drop the Dead Donkey" might make a fun group to encounter... Another fun option is to have Oliver North appear - in my campaign he is actually a respected journalist currently embedded with the USMC in Poland (and actually blurring the line between a journalist and an unofficial officer - I can post my write up if anyone is interested. A nice NPC might be a young person who wants to become famous and has set out to be a photographer using his own skills hoping to sell the pictures to someone later.

The bodyguard could easily be a veteran who has been discharged because of age or injury - again makes a colourful character.

Regarding arming journalists - I think it depends on the war, modern practice of targeting reporters is really too late to impact TW2000, the first real time it started was in the former Jugoslavia and it only became apparent in the post 9/11 campaigns. My guess is that the Soviets would have interred captured journalists not targeted them. Best practice early war would probably be to be unarmed and only arm when marauders start to appear.

A really obvious example of an armed journalist is seen in "We Were Soldiers." Here however the enemy were quite likely to kill journalists so it is not surprising he picked up a weapon.

The "British based independent cable network" that the Screw Up worked for was originally named as Globelink News in early drafts...

IIRC Sgt Major Plumley basically forced him to.

Ahem, have to take issue with this, ever heard of the Balabo Five? Five Australian journo's, (one might have been a Kiwi) went missing from Balabo in Timor Leste in 1975. The common belief (unproven) is that they were executed by Indonesian troops active in the area.

Also circa 1975 I think, cant recall specifics at the moment, but think the Khmer Rouge executed some journo's.

Nicaraguar, maybe I'm getting a film and reality mixed up but some nuns were executed and I think a journo too.

All of these were long before the former Jugoslavia break up conflicts but I'll admit its probably a more recent trend most likely tied to that other trend of conflicts not being wars between two or more standing armies anymore.

Nice article though. I'll admit to not recognising anyone but they're usefull fleshed out templates.

There's some quite sobering stats on this website (it only has data since 1992 so more or less coincides with the start of the Balkan Wars)

https://cpj.org/killed/

Same site also has some general information that might be useful if running a Journalist NPC (or PC), particulary the section on security

https://cpj.org/reports/2012/04/jour...rity-guide.php

There were issues with journalists in combat zones in Nicaragua and in southern Africa (Angola/Namibia), but as i recall, it wasn't until the later 90s (after Yugoslavia became messy) that I can recall journalists needing to include security in their field teams.

I know that (Western) journalists were almost always considered as potential spies in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, so I suspect that captured journalists would be considered as intelligence assets, but not shot out of hand if captured on the battlefield - but probably not released as non-combatants. And probably not comfortably interned.

Journalists for print media or radio, of course, have a smaller foot print (and accordingly may be easier to field). They take notes, bear witness, take pictures; radio journalists may record sound, and may or may not have a sound engineer (by the late 90s software was available to record and edit sound on a laptop).

Journo Teams will probably include a translator if no one is near fluent in the local language - Polish in Poland.

Other potential journalists could be from neutral powers -

• A team from the Krakow Bulletin (or radio station) wandering up to report on the Battle of Kalisz (they'd have heard rumors of the 5th Inf's plunge into Poland)
  
• A team of French or Swedish journalists; their attitude can vary between sympathetic and hostile. They may or may not have a minder (public affairs officer) and may or may not be an embedded contingent. By 2000, I doubt you'd find journalists from further away.

There have always been incidents as far back as records go, perhaps I should have made it clearer that the policy of targeting journalists specifically instead of just those that had discovered something inconvenient, had outlived their usefulness as hostages, etc.

I actually did a little bit of work a few years ago teaching aid workers and journalists and talking to veterans they felt much more threatened now. Worth noting that in the Second Gulf War, journalists had a higher percentage casualty rate with UK forces than infantry subalterns, traditionally the highest percentage casualty sufferers.

I hadn't heard of that incident, thanks for the heads up.

I really like the concept of this, but I expect that Pact forces would view anyone from the "State media" of Krakow as traitors.

Actually I'm not sure about distant journalists, after all when things go bad they might not be able to get home.

Just to come back on that, part of the idea behind the piece was to make the characters relatively easily adaptable with a minimum amount of work. For example, take the character of the Idealist, make her slightly younger and remove the references to being published in Rolling Stone, etc and she could easily fit that bill.

And again, simply change the Veteran Correspondent from an Englishman working for the BBC to a Frenchman working for Agence France Presse or a Swede working for Swedish State Broadcaster, remove the references to Northern Ireland and the Falklands and you have a template that can be used for a Frenchman. Or make the Idealist French. Or a French Bitch, etc, etc

I do have a draft somewhere where the Idealist is a Southern Irishman just to illustrate how easy it was to change a few details and come up with something that is the same but different if that makes sense (the twist was that he was working for MI6).

Also, I'm not sure I agree that you may not find journalists from further afield. Sure, after 97 there likely wont be that many journalists coming from outside Europe, but there may be a significant number already there who become effectively stranded after the nuclear exchanges, so I think you could conceivably find Japanese, Australian, Kiwis, etc, etc either as on air talent or cameramen, etc.

I am sure there will be journalists from Asia/Pacific (Chinese, Japanese, Aussie/NZ) stranded in Europe and vice versa, but by 2000, I doubt they will be earning a living reporting for their original organization. Simply put - they won't be reporting (lack of communication channels), they won't be paid (lack of international banking) and will need to earn money doing something else or working for someone else.

For example, Hikaru Takihashi, dashing correspondent for the Nippon Daily, by late 1998 may find himself working as a waiter in a Magdeburg cafe, or as a contractor driving trucks for the BAOR rather than sending home biweekly articles.

Uncle Ted

That general point is covered in the original article

Clearly not every Journalist in Europe is still going to be plying their original trade, but I see no reason why some non European ones can't fall into one of the above categories.

Perhaps, but someone not actively being a journalist, without support from some organization, is not likely to be encountered on a road in the wilds of Poland, which was the point of the original.

And at the moment of encounter, if my waiter tells me he is from Japan and is a TV new reporter, I still want him to bring me tea and a croisent rather than sit for an interview.

Uncle Ted

You're thinking of the (very good) 1986 Oliver Stone film Salvador which depicts the real-life murders of 4 American nuns by a group of El Salvadoran national guardsmen in December 1980. The main character in the film was American photojournalist Richard Boyle (played by James Woods) but he wasn't murdered, he just knew one of the murdered nuns.

By co-incidence I have just come across the fact that he was carrying an M16 when he boarded the flight out. Plumley as well as the M1911 he carries in the film also carried an M14.

Yeah, I thought it was pushing believability a bit that a senior NCO like Plumley would go into combat without carrying a longarm and that the movie was just trying to spice up the narrative a bit, but then again with a guy like Plumley who's going to tell him what to do?

Personally I thought the movie did the book justice. Obviously there's only so much detail you can pack into less than 2 hours of screen time, but I wasn't too disappointed with it.

Female Journalist in the field.
 

Photo of an NPC. That would also make a interesting PC.

Coincidence can be amusing? Over on the T2k page on Facebook, someone posted that she played a French TV journalist in Silesia in a T2k game, then I come over here and see this.

journalists can be very useful - most have language skills and make good interrogators to get information out of people without them knowing it - and a real field journalist (as opposed to the equivalent of a REMF - i.e. a news anchor for instance) can keep up quite well with soldiers in the field