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Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
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.
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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.