Two symposiums held in June on the media coverage of the U.S.-led war on Iraq featured Japanese correspondents describing their experiences moving with the U.S. military. Some newspaper managers also explained decisions that they made on the grounds of protecting the safety of their reporters on the front lines.

NSK hosted the 43rd national consultative meeting for the examination of news reporting on June 4-5 in Tokyo. The discussions on the theme of "The War in Iraq - Reports from the Battlefield," drew 87 people from 41 media companies, most of them officials or editors who had reviewed Iraq war articles.

The participants discussed lectures by Asahi Shimbun reporter Takeshi Nojima, who moved with the U.S. military, and by Mika Yamamoto, a freelance journalist who stayed in Baghdad after the start of the fighting.

Nojima, who traveled with a unit of the U.S. Marines to move north in Iraq, overland from Kuwait, said, "I did my best to report what I witnessed about the real deeds of American soldiers. Readers apparently showed great interest in how I acted and felt in facing the reality of the battlefields, and in the hardship of my daily living."

Nojima said the U.S. military was sincere with him. "Probably, U.S. officials had an ulterior motive in accepting war correspondents. But it was a welcome decision for the media. The presence of reporters might have deterred some acts of barbarism by the soldiers," he said.

He said that media organizations should send reporters to the front line despite the danger to reporters' lives. In this context, he proposed that if media organizations send their own reporters to battlefields, they should do so only after signing a liability waiver contract with each reporter to agree on the legal responsibility in case of death or injury.

Freelance journalist Yamamoto, who continued reporting in Baghdad under a contract with a Japanese commercial TV broadcaster, told the symposium that she had the freedom to decide what she reported, what she should report and when and how she would evacuate from Baghdad.

Commenting on the relations between freelance journalists and media organizations, Yamamoto said that the TV station with which she had a contract appointed a freelance journalist in order to get a person with specialized skills. She said that the move was not intended to keep other reporters from dangerous places, but she added that it is natural for such freelance journalists to be rewarded with monetary guarantees and special payments, in return for the risks they face.

On June 7, the National Council to Promote Ethics of Mass Media held its 18th open symposium in Tokyo. The theme, "What Japan's Mass Media Faces - the Iraq War and the Media," was discussed before an audience of about 370 people -- 284 of whom were not members of the media.

The council is a cross-sectional organization of 227 member companies in the newspaper, broadcasting, publishing, film and advertising industries. It serves to discuss ethics common to all media industries, while campaigning against any outside intervention in freedom of the press and of speech.

Kazutaka Sato, a freelance journalist who remained in Baghdad during the fighting, delivered a lecture at the symposium about his experience.

Sato had been staying in the room immediately next to the one at the Palestine Hotel that was targeted and destroyed in April by US tank fire. One Reuter photographer died and several other people were injured, including a second Reuter reporter.

Sato, who was not injured, called the tank-fire a de facto threat by the U.S. military to journalists, saying that the U.S. military had made it known that it would protect reporters moving with its units, but apparently treated other reporters as "enemies."

Debunking the scene of the pulling down of the statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein at the plaza in front of the Palestine Hotel, Sato said that many media organizations reported it as symbolizing Baghdad citizens' welcome for the U.S. troops. But Sato said, "Only about 200 people were present at that scene. And half of them were citizens and the rest were media people. My impression was that Baghdad citizens were not really giving much of a welcome to the American troops".

During the symposium discussions that followed, Nippon TV reporter Hiromi Imaizumi gave a lecture in which he insisted that embedded reporters provide valuable coverage of wars. But he also said, "It should have been impossible for the US military to pick and choose which reporters would be allowed to move with the military. Leaving reporters at the mercy of U.S. authorities made it all the harder to resist pressure to fall in line with US war propaganda. What we need to do now is to try not to be misled. It is of great significance for reporters to confirm, with our own eyes and ears, what is actually happening," he said.

Koji Harada of the Kyodo news agency, who left Baghdad shortly before the start of the war, but returned to the city just before its fall to the coalition forces, emphasized the importance of on-the-spot news reporting. He also stressed the need to take every precaution to ensure the safety of reporters. "For instance, we were flying a white flag on the balcony of our room at the Palestine Hotel. Reporters from other media organizations made a mockery of it, but I am sure that our room was not hit by a bomb because of the white flag," he said.

Nobuo Watari, foreign news editor at the Asahi's Tokyo head office, said that he ordered his war correspondents to break away from the U.S. military as fighting became intense. From the standpoint of a person in a managerial position, he said, "News reporting is an assignment from the company. As a person in the position to give assignments, I had to foresee danger. We must make a crucial judgment on a case-by-case basis, now that no news reporting is free from danger. For those in a position to do reporting assignments, we could not be too timid or nervous."