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 A news reporter may express a professional, journalistic judgement but not a personal opinion. The audience should not be able to gauge from programmes the personal views of presenters and reporters on controversial issues. News coverage: Conflict in the Middle East - by Orla Guerin, Middle East correspondent for the BBC. In the Middle East, perhaps more than anywhere else, there is no single truth. There are two competing versions of current events and of history. There are two realities and two tragedies. Reflecting two realities Our role here is to move from one side to the other, crossing front lines, side stepping checkpoints, finding back roads into closed military zones. We aim to give the communities on both sides a chance to tell their own stories. When necessary we use armoured cars and bullet proof vests, to ensure that we can report from the frontlines, and provide eye witness accounts. My job as a journalist here is to capture the lives of two warring peoples who share so much and so little. We are committed to fairness and to balance, but there is no way to satisfy everyone. This is a life and death situation; suffering drags on day after day. For both Israelis and Palestinians this is a struggle for survival. Our role: reporting the conflict Many in both nations want us to take their side, and are unhappy that we do not. But our role is to report the conflict, and let the viewer and listener make up their own minds. I've spent much of the last 15 years covering conflict. Being a woman has not affected my work in any material way - either in terms of the stories I have covered, or the way I've covered them. As reporters in the Middle East we live in dangerous times in a volatile place. We are at risk in the West Bank and Gaza, and inside Israel. Driving around Jerusalem I pass many bomb sites - bus stops, food markets, cafes. We spend much of our time here in hospitals and at funerals - on both sides. The faces of the bereaved are impossible to forget. |
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