Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. A note before we
Speaker 1: start that this conversation includes an account of abduction, violence,
Speaker 1: and sexual assault that some listeners may find distressing.
Speaker 2: We went on daily patrols six seven hours a day.
Speaker 2: We were shot at, ambushed, and then we had to
Speaker 2: jump out of black hawks in the middle of the
Speaker 2: night into the heart of Tulliban Territory.
Speaker 1: Lindsay Adario Pulitzerprise winning photographer and chronicler of the extreme
Speaker 1: and the every day.
Speaker 2: My job is to bear witness to everything that happens
Speaker 2: in conflict zones. Women continue to deliver babies, I see marriages, divorce,
Speaker 2: I see death and life.
Speaker 1: Do you love the job?
Speaker 2: It's something that I do from my heart and my soul.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Speaker 1: Michelle Hussein. There have been times in my professional life
Speaker 1: when I've had to take a flat jacket and body
Speaker 1: armor with me on assignment. Not that I've ever been
Speaker 1: a war reporter, but there are places I've needed to
Speaker 1: go to which carried risk and you always need to
Speaker 1: be prepared. Whenever I saw that kit in the hallway
Speaker 1: before a trip, I always felt a moment of gratitude
Speaker 1: that this wasn't part of my everyday work. For Lindsaya Dario,
Speaker 1: though it is. She's an award winning photographer who's worked
Speaker 1: in war zones from Afghanistan and Ukraine to Sudan. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's the writer the correspondent traveling with her who ends
Speaker 1: up getting more of the attention from an assignment, but
Speaker 1: it's Lindsay's pictures which bring their words to life. Some
Speaker 1: years ago, she wrote her own book about the places
Speaker 1: she's been, the extreme situations she's experienced, including being kidnapped twice,
Speaker 1: once in Iraq and once in Libya. If you're thinking
Speaker 1: there aren't many women in this field, you'd be right,
Speaker 1: and that's part of why there's a new documentary about
Speaker 1: her on Disney Plus. Intriguingly, it's called Love and War,
Speaker 1: which is why when we spoke, I asked her, how
Speaker 1: does love come into it?
Speaker 2: Love comes into it in the balance of my family.
Speaker 2: You have war, and then you come home to this
Speaker 2: sort of nest of love with my children and my husband,
Speaker 2: also my sisters and my parents. But I think also
Speaker 2: the thing about war is that you see these incredible
Speaker 2: scenes of love and generosity and kindness and selflessness alongside brutality.
Speaker 2: Of course, you get a sense of love that actually
Speaker 2: sort of binds people in these horrific moments.
Speaker 1: You've witnessed birth, You've certainly witnessed death, You've witnessed grief.
Speaker 1: All of this is part of what you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, my job is to bear witness to
Speaker 2: everything that happens in conflict zones and also outside of
Speaker 2: conflict zones. And so I'm seeing daily life continue under
Speaker 2: these very difficult circumstances. So that means, yes, women continue
Speaker 2: to deliver babies. You know, I see marriages, I see divorce,
Speaker 2: I see everything. I see death and life.
Speaker 1: Do you love the job? Is that also part of
Speaker 1: the love that's in this?
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think anyone could cover war without
Speaker 2: loving the job. It's something that I do from my
Speaker 2: heart and my soul. It's something that I do because
Speaker 2: I believe in it.
Speaker 1: Going back in time, I wondered if we could talk
Speaker 1: about two turning points. I think they're turning points, the
Speaker 1: first of which is nine to eleven, and you're already
Speaker 1: working as a photographer. But is that the moment where
Speaker 1: you become a war photographer?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I was photographing for many years, and then
Speaker 2: I moved to India in two thousand and in India,
Speaker 2: I started becoming aware of women's issues in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: It's not about how to come to power exactly, as
Speaker 1: of being restricted exactly, and.
Speaker 2: So I was reading about that, and I was reading
Speaker 2: a lot about women's issues in Afghanistan, and as a
Speaker 2: young woman, I was curious, you know, what to Afghan
Speaker 2: women think? Not necessarily what does the West think of
Speaker 2: what Afghan women must feel, but what do they actually think?
Speaker 2: And so I went to Afghanistan as I was twenty
Speaker 2: six years old, and I borrowed money from my sister
Speaker 2: and I started doing a lot of reporting and photographing
Speaker 2: what I could of women living under the Taliban and
Speaker 2: I ended up making three trips to Afghanistan before September eleventh.
Speaker 2: So when September eleventh happened and the US was gearing
Speaker 2: up for war in Afghanistan, it felt very natural for
Speaker 2: me to go there because I was already quite familiar
Speaker 2: with it and so had.
Speaker 1: A hot time. Hadn't you se selling those pictures?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I couldn't give.
Speaker 1: Them away, I mean is interesting.
Speaker 2: No one was interested because it was before September eleventh,
Speaker 2: and very few journalists were actually working in Afghanistan at
Speaker 2: the time. Photography was illegal under the Taliban, So the
Speaker 2: La Times published some pictures, but really it was difficult
Speaker 2: to get them published.
Speaker 1: And that all changed suddenly with international interest in the
Speaker 1: country absolutely nine to eleven. And was there a sense
Speaker 1: of excitemental thrill then for you that new opportunities are dawning.
Speaker 2: Well, I think after September eleventh what became exciting for
Speaker 2: me is that I had this knowledge that I had
Speaker 2: procured on my own, and then suddenly it was relevant
Speaker 2: on a world stage. And so the New York Times
Speaker 2: sent me on my first big assignment for them, which
Speaker 2: was covering Pakistan leading up to the fall of the Taliban,
Speaker 2: and then the New York Times magazine put me on
Speaker 2: assignment to do the Women of Jihad, and so I
Speaker 2: started working pretty consistently for the New York Times then.
Speaker 1: But that's when you guess you have to learn that
Speaker 1: there are risks involved in your work, right, You start
Speaker 1: to have to evaluate that, like covering a war is
Speaker 1: something completely different to you at that stage.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, at that time, there were suicide bombers, there were
Speaker 2: smaller scale attacks. The US started bombing Afghanistan, and then
Speaker 2: we had to navigate how to go in. There was
Speaker 2: a whole you know, when do you go into a
Speaker 2: country when the government or the taller bomb was falling.
Speaker 2: You know, when is it safe to actually move into
Speaker 2: a place that's very hostile? And so it's always a
Speaker 2: learning curve. You know. Now with Ukraine it's drones, and
Speaker 2: so I think it's ever evolving.
Speaker 1: The other turning point I wondered about in your career
Speaker 1: was Iraq in two thousand and four, because you had
Speaker 1: the first of your abduction kidnap experiences. Then take me
Speaker 1: back to that time and that place, the really chaotic
Speaker 1: period after the US invasion, the year afterwards, I mean even.
Speaker 2: Leading up to the US invasion, when I was offered
Speaker 2: to go into Iraq, I didn't think. I really wasn't
Speaker 2: sure I could handle a military mbed. At that point,
Speaker 2: I had never been in combat. I was offered a
Speaker 2: position with one hundred and first Airborne. I did not
Speaker 2: take it.
Speaker 1: So why did you think you couldn't handle it?
Speaker 2: Because I was a woman. I didn't know if I'd
Speaker 2: be physically fit enough, if i'd be as strong as
Speaker 2: the man I was going in with. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what it would feel like to be under fire, because
Speaker 2: even though I covered the fall of the Taliban, it
Speaker 2: was not combat. This is going to be frontline, yeah,
Speaker 2: And I really didn't want to be responsible for holding
Speaker 2: anyone up or being scared or I just wasn't sure
Speaker 2: how I would respond. And so I ended up going
Speaker 2: into northern Iraq from Iran, and many journalists did, and
Speaker 2: we were sort of covering the Kurdish territory and there
Speaker 2: was a proxy war. It was Lansar fighting US forces
Speaker 2: backed by Kurdish special forces, and it was there that
Speaker 2: I was in my first attack that was a very
Speaker 2: close call that actually killed a journalist standing where I
Speaker 2: had been standing. And we were covering refugees fleeing this area,
Speaker 2: something that I covered a million times now, and all
Speaker 2: the locals were warning us to leave, and we went
Speaker 2: to leave, and literally an incoming round came in and
Speaker 2: landed so close to our car that our entire car
Speaker 2: flew forward. And as we evacuated, we went to this
Speaker 2: school like a few kilometers down the road, and a
Speaker 2: taxi pulled up and said, is there a journalist here?
Speaker 2: And everyone was regathering and the taxi driver said, I
Speaker 2: have the body of a journalist in my trunk. Can
Speaker 2: someone help me identify him? And I just I remember
Speaker 2: looking at him, and I ran behind the school and
Speaker 2: just started sobbing and thinking, I don't want to do
Speaker 2: this for a living. I don't think I can stay here.
Speaker 2: But there was no way out because Saddam was still
Speaker 2: in power. We couldn't go south, Iran wouldn't let us
Speaker 2: back in, and I basically had to learn how to
Speaker 2: deal with my fear and how to cover war in
Speaker 2: northern Iraq. So before the kidnapping in Iraq, there were
Speaker 2: like these gradual close calls.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's almost a sliding doors moment, that one, because
Speaker 1: had there been a way out, I probably would have
Speaker 1: and you might not have gone back to that kind
Speaker 1: of zone again. But then you were there in Iraq again,
Speaker 1: and you were out one day with other journalists, and
Speaker 1: that was when you got held up at a checkpoint.
Speaker 1: Yeah Fallujah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I had basically spent all of two thousand
Speaker 2: and three and the beginning of two thousand and four
Speaker 2: in Iraq. I was working with a colleague for the
Speaker 2: New York Times, and we heard there was a helicopter down,
Speaker 2: a marine helicopter down. So we went. The only road
Speaker 2: open was a smuggler's route, and as we were nearing
Speaker 2: the outskirts of Fallujah, we turned a corner and literally
Speaker 2: the entire road was full of insurgents with kafias their faces, wrapped,
Speaker 2: rockets on their backs, coloss and a coughs. They started
Speaker 2: shooting in the air, where it was terrifying. They pulled
Speaker 2: all the men out of the car. I was dressed
Speaker 2: in full hit jobs so by a headscarf, everything, and
Speaker 2: they left me sitting in the car and I was
Speaker 2: looking out the window watching my colleague get led away.
Speaker 1: And this is where you did something really interesting. You
Speaker 1: said that colleague was your husband.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought if I did that, they would take
Speaker 2: us as a couple and it'd be more complicated for
Speaker 2: them to kill us or to figure out what to do.
Speaker 2: When you insert a woman into that situation, it's a
Speaker 2: hell of.
Speaker 1: A thing to do, Lindsey, I'm trying to imagine being
Speaker 1: in the same position, and you're in not safety, but
Speaker 1: you're in a more protected position in this car, and
Speaker 1: you're connecting yourself to someone who's being led away.
Speaker 2: I guess, but you would probably do the same thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, you work in teams in these places, and
Speaker 2: when you work in war zones, there is a solidarity,
Speaker 2: and so I didn't think about it in terms of
Speaker 2: my own safety. I thought about it in terms of
Speaker 2: how can I help this situation? And I think it
Speaker 2: did help diffuse it didn't it? I think it did
Speaker 2: in the end. I think it did. They held us
Speaker 2: for a day. It was terrifying. Of course, we had
Speaker 2: guns to our heads. They questioned us repeatedly, and in
Speaker 2: the end they ended up letting us go.
Speaker 1: You've also been on embeds with the US in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and when you've written about it in your book, I
Speaker 1: think one gets a sense of the humanity of the
Speaker 1: soldiers as well as the civilians. You were embedded, I
Speaker 1: think with one group for two months, and at the
Speaker 1: end of that some of those you'd been with were killed.
Speaker 2: Correct. I was embedded with the one hundred and seventy third
Speaker 2: Airborn in the Corngall Valley, and that was in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, at the time, arguably the most dangerous
Speaker 2: place in Afghanistan, and we intentionally asked to embed there
Speaker 2: because we wanted to understand why there were so many
Speaker 2: civilian casualties in Afghanistan given the incredible technology that the
Speaker 2: US military had, and so we were very lucky because
Speaker 2: we were allowed as women to go to sort of
Speaker 2: the heart of the war and we spent two months
Speaker 2: with them and witnessed, you know, went on daily patrols
Speaker 2: six seven hours a day, we were shot at, ambushed,
Speaker 2: and then at the end we went on Operation Rock Avalanche,
Speaker 2: which was a battalion wide operation. We had to jump
Speaker 2: out of black Hawks in the middle of the night
Speaker 2: into the heart of Tulliban territory. And it was really
Speaker 2: on these missions that you learn what wars about. It
Speaker 2: was one of the few times, ironically, in twenty five
Speaker 2: years of covering conflict that I really felt like I
Speaker 2: was at the heart of war because you're on the
Speaker 2: side of the mountain with a group of young American
Speaker 2: men who are told they're fighting for democracy, and you
Speaker 2: just sort of see the cost. You really understand the
Speaker 2: complete disconnect between the Afghans who didn't want the Americans
Speaker 2: there and the Americans who thought they were helping the
Speaker 2: Afghan and young American soldiers dying and Afghanist dying. So
Speaker 2: what was it for? And you don't see those scenes
Speaker 2: unless you really invest the time.
Speaker 1: Did you have those conversations? I'm wondering what the dynamic
Speaker 1: is like on an embed when you can clearly see this,
Speaker 1: because you know Afghanistan and you know how the civilians
Speaker 1: feel about the presence, and it's evident in the fact
Speaker 1: that the attacks are taking place. But do you have
Speaker 1: those conversations with the soldiers? Not really.
Speaker 2: I mean I think for them at that time, they
Speaker 2: were sort of despondent because they had been there so long.
Speaker 2: It was so incredibly dangerous. I mean, we were shot
Speaker 2: at almost every day on every patrol. They were living
Speaker 2: in bunkers on the side of a mountain, and everyone
Speaker 2: was really lonely. Their personal lives were falling apart, and
Speaker 2: so they would talk about what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: But I think in terms of the greater political context,
Speaker 2: we never went there. It was very much about just
Speaker 2: kind of being there, having the trust of the soldiers,
Speaker 2: being able to access these embeds in these scenes.
Speaker 1: Do you think your presence represents something to them, some
Speaker 1: kind of assemblance for world outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They kept asking us, like, you're really here because
Speaker 2: you want to be regular. They could not believe it,
Speaker 2: and so I think they were very grateful that we
Speaker 2: were there, that the American public can see their service,
Speaker 2: could see what they were going through. I think that
Speaker 2: for them it's like a validation of what they're doing.
Speaker 1: One of the people who was later killed in action,
Speaker 1: you knew that he was planning to go home and
Speaker 1: propose to his girlfriend, and you end up photographing Rugel
Speaker 1: his body bag. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We were ambushed in Operation Rock Avalanche, and it was
Speaker 2: so chaotic and that we heard that there was man
Speaker 2: down and I'm photographing, and I realized I had photographed
Speaker 2: two of the three wounded. And then as I was
Speaker 2: making my way to the landing zone where the METAVAC
Speaker 2: was coming in to take out the wounded, I thought,
Speaker 2: where's because I knew his call sign and he hadn't
Speaker 2: come out. And then I saw the scout team sort
Speaker 2: of emerging from the dust carrying a body bag. And
Speaker 2: it was in that moment that I thought, I can't
Speaker 2: believe he's dead. You know, this young man who was
Speaker 2: so alive and talking about his future and then seeing
Speaker 2: him be carried in a body bag was really devastating.
Speaker 1: And the other soldiers are crying, and then I.
Speaker 2: Was crying, of course, because you make that connection, and
Speaker 2: then you think of his parents, you think of his
Speaker 2: loved ones, and you think they don't even know yet
Speaker 2: that they've lost their loved one.
Speaker 1: Do you have a struggle with leaving any of that
Speaker 1: behind at the end of the day because you also
Speaker 1: need to you must need to compartmentalize, or do you
Speaker 1: not think of it that way? Is the emotion part
Speaker 1: of what makes you a great photographer?
Speaker 2: I think a combination. I mean, I definitely allow myself
Speaker 2: to feel, and I have, I think, an extraordinary amount
Speaker 2: of empathy, and that I wish I wasn't so emotional,
Speaker 2: but I think that it's important, and I think that
Speaker 2: when I stop feeling, I really need to be worried.
Speaker 2: But I also compartmentalize when I go home, because I
Speaker 2: have to be present for my personal life and I
Speaker 2: owe it to now my children and my husband to
Speaker 2: not live in this very dark place of sadness and
Speaker 2: war all the time. I carry it with me. I
Speaker 2: make it a point to not just forget about things,
Speaker 2: but I definitely have to compartmentalize so that I can
Speaker 2: be present.
Speaker 1: So we go back in time then to your birth family,
Speaker 1: your parents, and your sisters when you were growing up.
Speaker 1: I think, because you're the youngest of fool, your older
Speaker 1: sisters have said that they deserve some credit for what
Speaker 1: you are because they toughened you up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were really tough on me. I mean, anyone
Speaker 2: who has older sisters knows it's generally not an easy path.
Speaker 2: We grew up in Connecticut and a very sort of open,
Speaker 2: eccentric household. My parents are hairdressers, and we had very
Speaker 2: few rules at our house growing up. But my three
Speaker 2: older sisters, who I'm now very close to, were really tough.
Speaker 2: I mean they'd sort of they'd picked me up. They
Speaker 2: picked up me, they'd call me names that were constantly
Speaker 2: slamming the door in my face and telling me I
Speaker 2: couldn't join in. And I guess yeah, in a sense,
Speaker 2: they did. Dof for me.
Speaker 1: You had to go really far from home to carve
Speaker 1: out your own path. I feel, yes I did. But
Speaker 1: your parents being hairdresses, I mean, I'm thinking headdresses have
Speaker 1: to be good with people, they have to be able
Speaker 1: to talk to anyone, And perhaps that is a thread
Speaker 1: that you've brought into your professional exactly.
Speaker 2: It was really a household where we sort of opened
Speaker 2: our doors to anyone and everyone. And I think that
Speaker 2: that made me who I am in terms of being
Speaker 2: able to walk into any situation not be judgmental, really
Speaker 2: be able to accept people for who they are and
Speaker 2: where they're at.
Speaker 1: What was the first time you picked up a camera?
Speaker 1: How did that happen?
Speaker 2: My father gave me a camera when I was about
Speaker 2: twelve years old. A client of his gave him a camera,
Speaker 2: and I remember I had no idea how to use it.
Speaker 2: So I started reading all these manuals of like how
Speaker 2: to photograph and and so I started taking pictures of
Speaker 2: inanimate objects because I was too shy to approach people.
Speaker 2: And then I would sit on the roof and try
Speaker 2: and photograph the moon. And it was an awakening for
Speaker 2: me of sort of a different way of expressing. But
Speaker 2: it really wasn't until I graduated and then I started
Speaker 2: photographing people and really started becoming aware of photojournalism as
Speaker 2: a way to tell stories.
Speaker 1: But you hadn't grown up with photojournalism. Is that right now?
Speaker 1: I think it wasn't a house which had newspapers coming in.
Speaker 1: You're not looking at images of like conflicts around the world.
Speaker 2: Really, it was not an intellectual family. We had no
Speaker 2: books in the house except for the encyclopedias, and so
Speaker 2: it wasn't until really I went to university and I
Speaker 2: was determined to do something that was more intellectual, obviously
Speaker 2: because I grew up in such a creative family, and
Speaker 2: I studied international relations and I did not want to
Speaker 2: be a photographer at all. And then I graduated and
Speaker 2: the only thing I wanted to do was photograph. And
Speaker 2: it wasn't until I realized that you can photojournalism with
Speaker 2: sort of this great marriage between that it existed and yeah,
Speaker 2: that it existed, which sounds ridiculous, But if you don't
Speaker 2: grow up in a family with newspapers and where you're
Speaker 2: constantly sort of privy to what's happening in the world,
Speaker 2: why would I have known about photojournalism.
Speaker 1: Your craft today? When you go out on assignment, and
Speaker 1: you've been on many tough assignments, including Ukraine and recently
Speaker 1: Sudan and Gaza and other places. But when you're going
Speaker 1: out and you presume you want to come back that
Speaker 1: day with something hug of course, what do you set
Speaker 1: out Do you set out to think today, I really
Speaker 1: want to capture a particular kind of scene. Yeah, are
Speaker 1: you going with the flow. No.
Speaker 2: I guess what people don't understand it is that photojournalism
Speaker 2: and being a photographer is not just about taking photos.
Speaker 2: There is so much that goes into it. So as
Speaker 2: I'm gearing up for a trip, I spend an extraordinary
Speaker 2: amount of time doing research, updating myself on what's happening
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: Are you looking for locations or thinking everything? That hospital
Speaker 1: is somewhere I'd like to go to. That kind of
Speaker 1: person is someone I want to find.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for themes. I'm looking for contacts. I'm looking
Speaker 2: for hospitals. I'm looking for schools. I'm looking for what
Speaker 2: is the story of the moment, what is important? And
Speaker 2: how can I advance the story? What's not being told,
Speaker 2: what's happening to women that is rape being used as
Speaker 2: a weapon of war. I'm looking for sort of everything.
Speaker 2: So when I finally get on the ground in a country,
Speaker 2: every day I have a list of things in my head.
Speaker 2: I'm making notes, I'm doing reporting on the ground. I'm
Speaker 2: constantly updating my shoot list. And sometimes things are serendipitous.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll be driving and I'll see this extraordinary scene
Speaker 2: and I'll stop the car and that might be the
Speaker 2: photo for the day, But I always have an agenda somewhere.
Speaker 1: But that shoot list, when you're thinking about it in
Speaker 1: advance and making that list, is it visual that you
Speaker 1: actually have.
Speaker 2: Do you think in that way? Yeah, well I think
Speaker 2: in words. Do you think in images? I think in images.
Speaker 2: In Sudan, for example, I knew that food is an
Speaker 2: issue and there is malnutrition, and so when I'm going in,
Speaker 2: I know I have to look for a communal kitchen,
Speaker 2: one of the emergency response rooms, food distribution. You know,
Speaker 2: is there some place that I can show that people
Speaker 2: are starving. I'm making a list because there are things
Speaker 2: I've read about. There are things that I know help
Speaker 2: comprehensively tell a story, and so it's not just about
Speaker 2: showing up somewhere and looking for pretty pictures.
Speaker 1: There was a day early in the war in Ukraine
Speaker 1: in February twenty twenty two when you were out and
Speaker 1: you ended up seeing Themoth immediate Aftomoth actually being almost
Speaker 1: in the middle of a Russian struggle. I was evacuated.
Speaker 1: Civilians tell me about that day because it led to
Speaker 1: a famous image that you've taken. But I want to
Speaker 1: know the before sure, and the often so it.
Speaker 2: Was actually March sixth, twenty twenty two, and at that
Speaker 2: point the situation in Butucha and Airpine was a bit
Speaker 2: of a mystery. Everyone knew the Russians were there. They
Speaker 2: had sort of encircled the area. A lot of civilians
Speaker 2: started fleeing to Kiev across the broken Earpen bridge. The
Speaker 2: bridge had been broken intentionally by the Ukrainian forces to
Speaker 2: stop the Russian advance, and so I had seen these
Speaker 2: photographs of hundreds of Ukrainian civilians leaving Bucha and Eirpeine
Speaker 2: across the bridge the day before, and I didn't know
Speaker 2: about it, and I was really upset with myself because
Speaker 2: it was a really important moment in the conflict, and
Speaker 2: so I made a plan to go the following morning,
Speaker 2: and it felt incredibly tense, and I had been worn
Speaker 2: that there was shelling on the other side of the bridge,
Speaker 2: and so we took cover behind this wall near the bridge,
Speaker 2: and we were photographing civilians leaving, and it was a
Speaker 2: known civilian evacuation route. So when the first mortar round
Speaker 2: came in, I thought, well, the Russians know this is
Speaker 2: all civilians, so they won't kill them. Because of course,
Speaker 2: putin had said repeatedly, we are not targeting civilians, and
Speaker 2: so my security advisor said, would you like to leave?
Speaker 2: And I said, no, no, no, they're not going to
Speaker 2: target this. This is all women and children and elderly.
Speaker 2: And so I was shooting and then another round came
Speaker 2: in a bit closer, and so we dove for cover
Speaker 2: behind the cement wall, and almost immediately a third round
Speaker 2: came in and landed with like twenty meters between me
Speaker 2: and the family, and I saw the flash of the round.
Speaker 2: The mortar round hit the pavement and it was a
Speaker 2: ball of flames, and dove behind this wall and when
Speaker 2: I popped up, I thought that it was a soldier
Speaker 2: that had been knocked down, because they were calling for
Speaker 2: a medic. And as I approached, I realized that there
Speaker 2: were children. I mean, I first noticed these moon boots
Speaker 2: and I thought, I can't believe there was a family.
Speaker 2: And I'm scanning the scene and I'm shooting, and there's
Speaker 2: still rounds coming in, so I know I have to
Speaker 2: work quickly. Of course, my instinct is to leave, but
Speaker 2: I don't want to leave because I've just witnessed what
Speaker 2: I thought was a war crime, and so I'm shooting,
Speaker 2: and then I work my way around the scene and
Speaker 2: I see the faces, and I'm thinking to myself, the
Speaker 2: New York Times will never publish civilians who have been killed.
Speaker 2: But I have to document this just for the sake
Speaker 2: of documentation, and I'm trying to do it in a
Speaker 2: respectful way, in a way that's dignified. Of course, I
Speaker 2: don't know if the family is dead or alive. And
Speaker 2: then we have to run away because there rounds still
Speaker 2: coming in. And when I get back to the car,
Speaker 2: I called my editor and I said, I've just waitness this,
Speaker 2: and I'll send you photographs if they're in focus. Of course,
Speaker 2: I had no idea if I'd even properly made pictures,
Speaker 2: because I was still in shock. And the New York
Speaker 2: Times did make a decision to run the photos on
Speaker 2: the front page on the house floor they were used.
Speaker 2: They went sort of viral, just to prove that civilians
Speaker 2: were being targeted.
Speaker 1: Why was that so exceptional to publish those pictures, because
Speaker 1: these are culpses. These are faces of corpses that are
Speaker 1: visible the picture.
Speaker 2: In my many years of covering war, it is always
Speaker 2: a huge debate whether to publish the dead, especially when
Speaker 2: their faces are identifiable. In this case, I tried to
Speaker 2: shoot in a way where their faces were not, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't very graphic. It looked as if everyone was
Speaker 2: sleeping they had been knocked over by the sheer impact
Speaker 2: of the blast, that we had only been spared because
Speaker 2: actually the blast went in their direction and not our direction.
Speaker 1: You said you were shocked, but we also angry.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean I was angry. I was upset. In
Speaker 2: the documentary, you can hear me cursing because I didn't
Speaker 2: even realize that Andre, my colleague, had been shooting the
Speaker 2: whole time. And so I somehow convinced myself from the
Speaker 2: time we got into the car to back to the hotel,
Speaker 2: that actually it wasn't really a close call, that we
Speaker 2: were fine. We were quite a distance. And when I
Speaker 2: got back to the hotel, Clarissa Ward, who's the CNN correspondent,
Speaker 2: messaged me and said, are you okay? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm fine. She said I saw the attack. I said,
Speaker 2: how did you see the attack? And she said Andre
Speaker 2: posted it on Facebook. And my heart sort of sank
Speaker 2: because then I realized my family will have seen it,
Speaker 2: perhaps my children will have seen it, and I realized
Speaker 2: it actually was as close as I thought it was.
Speaker 1: In a situation like that, if you'll editor whoever you're
Speaker 1: trying to sell the pictures to says, actually, we're not
Speaker 1: going to use that for whatever reason, maybe even sometimes
Speaker 1: because it's not interesting enough in the brutal realities of
Speaker 1: the way New covered. What does that do to you?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, on these assignments, I can't do anything, really,
Speaker 2: I mean ethically, I have to just say okay. In
Speaker 2: this case, I was terrified they would say that. And
Speaker 2: because I had survived the attack and I knew that
Speaker 2: it was intentional targeting, I really went to bat because
Speaker 2: this was a situation where I actually witnessed bracketing of
Speaker 2: mortar rounds onto a civilian evacuation route, and so for
Speaker 2: me it was very important to publish these pictures.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you to put on your headphones
Speaker 1: and listen to something that you said a few years
Speaker 1: before that, And it was when you had been in
Speaker 1: Libya in twenty eleven and you had been held hostage
Speaker 1: by Gadaffi's troops in really difficult circumstances, and after you
Speaker 1: had come out of that, you went on CNN and
Speaker 1: you were asked whether these kinds of risks and realities
Speaker 1: of your work were worth it.
Speaker 3: When I was blind for it and bound and getting
Speaker 3: punched in the face, I said, why do I do this?
Speaker 3: Who cares about Libya? Why do I care about Libya?
Speaker 3: You know, these are questions I asked myself repeatedly. I
Speaker 3: do it because I believe in it. I do it
Speaker 3: because I think our policy makers need to have a
Speaker 3: first hand view of what's happening on the ground to
Speaker 3: make informed decisions. I think it's very important. But is
Speaker 3: it worth my life? Is it worth doing this to
Speaker 3: the people I love?
Speaker 1: It's a difficult question. They were traumatic days. I can
Speaker 1: see that from the descriptions you've given before. But how
Speaker 1: can you encapsulate what happened in those eight days after
Speaker 1: you abducted in twenty eleven with other journalists?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was taken hostage with three other journalists for
Speaker 2: the New York Times, three men. We were blindfolded, tied up,
Speaker 2: beaten up. As the only woman, I was groped repeatedly
Speaker 2: by numerous men. And the most terrifying thing about being
Speaker 2: in captivity is that you have no idea what will
Speaker 2: come next, and so it's really about getting through minute
Speaker 2: by minute and can I survive being punched in the
Speaker 2: face and groped and breathed on punched in the face. Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was a moment in the very beginning of the
Speaker 2: captivity where they tied me up and put me in
Speaker 2: a vehicle on the front line, and they were sort
Speaker 2: of laughing at us because we were literally held on
Speaker 2: the front line while bullets and bombs were kind of
Speaker 2: raining around us in the crossfire. And at one point
Speaker 2: a soldier came over and sat next to me, and
Speaker 2: I thought, very stupidly that he was going to offer
Speaker 2: me water, because even in Iraq when we were held hostage,
Speaker 2: they were quite kind to us. You know, they weren't
Speaker 2: beating us. I mean, the bar is low, but you know,
Speaker 2: they weren't beating us, and they were giving us water.
Speaker 2: And so in Libya when he sat next to me,
Speaker 2: I looked at him and I thought, Okay, he's going
Speaker 2: to offer me water, and instead he pulled his fist
Speaker 2: back and just punched me square in the face. And
Speaker 2: I'm tied up, and I remember just putting my head
Speaker 2: down and actually seeing stars like in the cartoons, and
Speaker 2: my first thought was, oh, that's where the cartoons get
Speaker 2: the stars from. And then I thought, I can't believe
Speaker 2: this man has just punched me in the face a
Speaker 2: bound woman, and so I just started crying. And you
Speaker 2: don't want to make any noise because you don't want
Speaker 2: to offend anyone. So I was being very quiet and
Speaker 2: I just put my head down and tears were rolling
Speaker 2: down my face. And then he just walked away, and
Speaker 2: another man came over and put his cell phone to
Speaker 2: my ear, and his wife was on the phone and
Speaker 2: she said you are a dog and I said no, actually,
Speaker 2: I'm a journalist and she said you are a donkey
Speaker 2: and I said, no, Sahafa journalist. And it was mock executions.
Speaker 2: It was threatened constantly with tonight we will kill you.
Speaker 2: There were moments where one soldier had a gun to
Speaker 2: my face and he was caressing my cheek with his finger,
Speaker 2: saying tonight we will kill you. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: just a constant barrage of fear and emotions.
Speaker 1: And you're hearing your coagues being beaten up, yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: all the time as well. I know you lost colleagues
Speaker 1: in other incidents in Libya, and I remember being there
Speaker 1: in May of twenty eleven, close to where you were
Speaker 1: that day, but filming a documentary, so away from the
Speaker 1: front line. But I remember being in a hotel where
Speaker 1: there was a note saying, if anyone knows where the
Speaker 1: possessions of Tim Heatherington are, please let us know. And
Speaker 1: this was someone you know, you'd been with him, another
Speaker 1: journalist who was killed in that period. But I remember
Speaker 1: the effect on me because I knew him only by name,
Speaker 1: but seeing that little note on the wall and thinking
Speaker 1: he stayed in this hotel and one day he went
Speaker 1: out and he didn't come back and people are looking
Speaker 1: for his things. It was such a tiny detail, but
Speaker 1: it just made you think of the days when everything changes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Tim and I were together in the cornngall.
Speaker 2: Actually we covered Operation Rock Avalanche together.
Speaker 1: In Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: In Afghanistan that we spoke about and made a film
Speaker 2: about it. Yeah, he made an incredible film about it, Ristreppo,
Speaker 2: that's worth watching. Tim was an incredible photographer. He was
Speaker 2: a very thinking photographer, very sensitive, and on his way
Speaker 2: into Libya, he had been emailing me asking for advice
Speaker 2: on what the frontline was like, how to cover it,
Speaker 2: what he needed to bring. And then I of course
Speaker 2: went missing and he came in while I was in captivity,
Speaker 2: and so we never actually saw each other. And when
Speaker 2: I got out, I was dealing with my trauma of
Speaker 2: what we had been through. And then about a month
Speaker 2: after we had been released, I was in a meeting actually,
Speaker 2: and I looked at my phone and I got a
Speaker 2: message that he had been killed, along with Chris Hondros,
Speaker 2: who was another incredible photographer, and their death sent me
Speaker 2: into this tailspin that my own captivity had not. And
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it had to do with
Speaker 2: survivor's guilt. You know, why do some people live and
Speaker 2: some people don't? You know, nothing really makes sense in
Speaker 2: those moments, and there's no reason why we should be
Speaker 2: alive after Libya. I mean, there were so many moments
Speaker 2: where we should have been dead, and then they got killed,
Speaker 2: and so you have to ask yourself why you survive
Speaker 2: and others don't.
Speaker 1: It's a really tough question, do you ask yourself? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's an impossible one to answer, so you're sort
Speaker 1: of torturing yourself by asking it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I asked myself. I asked myself in the same
Speaker 2: vein that I ask myself why I'm so driven to
Speaker 2: do this work, despite the costs, despite the sort of
Speaker 2: emotional toll and the fallout on my loved ones.
Speaker 1: You've got young sons, and in the film we see
Speaker 1: you bathing the little one, and he says, do you
Speaker 1: have to go away like this? And please? Can you
Speaker 1: only go away for one day or three days? And
Speaker 1: you're trying to explain to him that some of the
Speaker 1: places you go a really far away but that's really hard.
Speaker 2: It's really hard. It's so hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, keep going away, you do, keep going back
Speaker 1: to these really tough places.
Speaker 2: I do. And he keeps asking me those questions. Now
Speaker 2: he's six, and even the thirteen year old, who will
Speaker 2: be fourteen, they both ask me all the time. Why
Speaker 2: do you have to go? Lucas says, is it dangerous?
Speaker 2: Is there fighting? What do you say to is it dangerous?
Speaker 2: I say it's dangerous, but I know how to stay safe.
Speaker 2: And you know I don't go to where it's too dangerous.
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 2: Look, there's an unpredictability in war, you never know, but
Speaker 2: there's also an unpredictability in life. I believe in this work,
Speaker 2: and I believe this is where I need to be,
Speaker 2: and I hope that my children can learn from that dedication.
Speaker 1: Would you have gone to Gaza, for example, if journalists
Speaker 1: had been allowed, Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And
Speaker 1: I think I, like every international journalist and war correspondent,
Speaker 1: really struggles with the fact that no international media has
Speaker 1: been allowed Indagaza. And I think that for any of
Speaker 1: us who dedicate our lives to this work, the tools
Speaker 1: we have to dealing with witnessing this trauma and witnessing
Speaker 1: this devastation is to go and do something, to go
Speaker 1: and at least be a platform for the people on
Speaker 1: the ground, at least provide a voice for them, and
Speaker 1: to have those tools taken away is incredibly debilitating. Palestinian
Speaker 1: journalists have been documenting the war at great cost, and
Speaker 1: they die, Yeah, some of them targeted exactly Vira over
Speaker 1: two hundred. Do you think that there's been enough solidarity
Speaker 1: with them, the fact that this is the deadliest period
Speaker 1: I'm documented for the last thirty years for journalists Palestinian
Speaker 1: I hope. So.
Speaker 2: I think we can only amplify their voices, and we
Speaker 2: can also point out the incredible work they've been doing.
Speaker 2: I think that we can point out the fact that
Speaker 2: many journalists have been killed and targeted and hope that
Speaker 2: it's not with impunity. Hope that at some point there
Speaker 2: will be someone called to be responsible for this. I
Speaker 2: think the fact that most Palestinian journalists are sort of
Speaker 2: dismissed as being part of Hamas, which is ridiculous, and
Speaker 2: for us to stand up, as in national journalists, to
Speaker 2: say no, these are accredited journalists. These are people risking
Speaker 2: their lives to bring the world the truth. Can we talk,
Speaker 2: lindsay about images and what you've seen over your career
Speaker 2: because you began your work in the age before social media,
Speaker 2: and the fact that we live in a world where
Speaker 2: people scroll from one short form video to another, you know,
Speaker 2: videos roll into each other. That how many people consume
Speaker 2: information and news for that matter. What does that mean
Speaker 2: for your work? Yeah, it's a very different thing. Because
Speaker 2: when I first covered conflict, we were the only way
Speaker 2: that a story could get out. People really relied on
Speaker 2: us to tell their stories. The responsibility felt even greater.
Speaker 2: Now we're in a situation where people can disseminate their
Speaker 2: own stories. We're sort of inundated by images and reporting.
Speaker 2: I think the main thing that we have to be
Speaker 2: conscious of is it's so important to understand where you're
Speaker 2: getting your information, and so when you see something on
Speaker 2: social media, no one cannot automatically take it as truth.
Speaker 2: And now in the age of AI, it's hard to
Speaker 2: verify images. You cannot just look at an image and
Speaker 2: know that it's reality. And so I think that the
Speaker 2: role of journalists is more important than ever because we
Speaker 2: really have a responsibility to make sure we're doing our
Speaker 2: job as responsible journalists, that we're doing the fact checking,
Speaker 2: we're getting the facts straight. And I think that it
Speaker 2: is it's very important.
Speaker 1: Is it harder for an image that you or anyone
Speaker 1: else takes to have lasting impact? I'm remembering the National
Speaker 1: Geographic cover with the young, nasty instant mc curry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, and then the image of the refugee child drowned.
Speaker 2: The beach and Vietnam you'll mention.
Speaker 1: So images like that, which you and I both remember.
Speaker 1: Is it harder now, when again, we have so much
Speaker 1: coming in for anything to have that kind of impact?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, you know, Eilon CURTI was at
Speaker 2: a time where we did have social media already and
Speaker 2: that image rose.
Speaker 1: To the top, But it was before TikTok, it.
Speaker 2: Was it was before TikTok, But I think we were
Speaker 2: at that point already inundated by images. You know, there
Speaker 2: were so many images from the refugee crisis coming out,
Speaker 2: and that image was so poignant because of the position
Speaker 2: of that little boy, the fact that he looked like
Speaker 2: he was sleeping. He could have been any one of
Speaker 2: our children. It's very difficult with images because people need
Speaker 2: to find a window to relate. They need to find
Speaker 2: a way into an image, and so if it's too graphic,
Speaker 2: often people will turn away because it's too hard right now,
Speaker 2: especially right now.
Speaker 1: And do you think of that as you're taking the picture?
Speaker 2: I do you think of that?
Speaker 1: Have to frame it slightly differently, to almost sanitize it
Speaker 1: a bit. No, what I do is I'll shoot in
Speaker 1: many different ways. I mean, I will shoot the sort
Speaker 1: of pure graphicness, and I will also just shoot. I'll
Speaker 1: try to make it more palatable. I'll try to make
Speaker 1: an image that I think the public in the handle
Speaker 1: and that the New York Times will actually publish, because
Speaker 1: most people will not.
Speaker 2: Publish an image that is gratuitously graphic.
Speaker 1: But what is the change you've seen? I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: the appetite for the graphic image is less now.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the appetite is less, but actually the
Speaker 2: tolerance is more because we see so many graphic images.
Speaker 2: If you look at the images that have come out
Speaker 2: of Gaza, I mean they're horrific, because what's happening there
Speaker 2: is horrific. I mean you see children being pulled from
Speaker 2: the rubble, you see mothers over their children. There's no
Speaker 2: end to the horrors we see coming out of Gaza.
Speaker 2: It's not to say that those images will be published
Speaker 2: in print, but they certainly are out there, and I
Speaker 2: think we as a public are used to seeing them
Speaker 2: over and over. And that's a pretty devastating place to be,
Speaker 2: you know, where we are at a place where I
Speaker 2: can look at an image and say that is the
Speaker 2: most horrible thing I've ever seen, But actually I saw
Speaker 2: that same image yesterday.
Speaker 1: In these interviewes, I normally ask people about their weekends,
Speaker 1: but I feel like with you, it's yeah, you're laughing
Speaker 1: because I get it, Like it's not a week day,
Speaker 1: what's a weekend? But is there a key dividing line
Speaker 1: between being on assignment and being at home? Is that
Speaker 1: the fundamental dividing again in your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I'm working, there are no weekends, obviously, and
Speaker 2: when i'm home, I'm still working all the time. But
Speaker 2: I do try to carve out time with my kids.
Speaker 2: Sometimes my thirteen year old wants nothing to do with
Speaker 2: me anyway, so it doesn't really matter. But I'm there
Speaker 2: and I'm cooking for them, and I'm trying to be present.
Speaker 1: But the work doesn't stop because you're doing the captions
Speaker 1: and you're processing the images, and you're probably thinking about
Speaker 1: the next the next assignment.
Speaker 2: I'm planning the next assignment and I'm writing another book
Speaker 2: right now, so that's taking up a lot of time.
Speaker 1: And you exercise. We see exercising in the film, and
Speaker 1: it really made me think about the level of physical
Speaker 1: fitness that is not nice to have. It's essential for
Speaker 1: your job.
Speaker 2: It is. I mean, most people who do my job
Speaker 2: are men, most of them are young men, and so
Speaker 2: I am in my fifties and I have to be fit.
Speaker 2: I have to be able to carry gear, I have
Speaker 2: to be able to run with it. I have to
Speaker 2: just not let my physical fitness ever get in the
Speaker 2: way of work.
Speaker 1: How do you switch off?
Speaker 2: I switch off when I'm with my friends and family,
Speaker 2: you know, I make a conscious effort to come home
Speaker 2: from six weeks in Ukraine and throw a dinner party
Speaker 2: for twenty five people because it makes me happy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes me happy, but I mean the
Speaker 1: complexities of human life and your domestic life and human
Speaker 1: arrangements that can be messy in a way that perhaps
Speaker 1: when you're on assignment you're in a certain mode.
Speaker 2: Well, when I'm on assignment, I try not to think
Speaker 2: too much about my kids and my family because then
Speaker 2: I feel like it will affect too much the decisions
Speaker 2: I'm making on the ground, and I have to really
Speaker 2: stay focused, and so I'm not facetiming with my kids
Speaker 2: every day. I'm not talking to my husband. I'm trying
Speaker 2: not to be too distracted by my kids. Really, But
Speaker 2: when you picture them, because you do think visually, when
Speaker 2: you picture the home life, the perfect weekend, the perfect
Speaker 2: home moment, what do you see? What's the image in
Speaker 2: your mind's eye, just sort of me in the kitchen,
Speaker 2: cooking or baking, and the kids coming in and out
Speaker 2: doing their thing. We have a very unconventional life, much
Speaker 2: like how I was raised, because we let the kids
Speaker 2: have a fair amount of freedom in deciding how they
Speaker 2: want to spend their weekends.
Speaker 1: But your life has these two extremes, yeah, does, and
Speaker 1: you that's the way you want it. I presume I
Speaker 1: don't really have a choice. I mean, I think when
Speaker 1: I decided to have a family, that meant living between
Speaker 1: two very dramatic extremes, and it meant sort of being
Speaker 1: torn always between these two worlds. Lindsay Adara, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. And that's the Michelle Hussein Show
Speaker 1: for this week. If you subscribe, you'll know as soon
Speaker 1: as a new episode hits the feed. And to everyone
Speaker 1: who's rated us here or left comments, thank you. We
Speaker 1: do also have an email Michelle Show at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to watch these conversations, they're on YouTube
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg TV, and there's a text version with my
Speaker 1: notes for added context. Those are at Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash Weekend. The show's producers are Jessica Beck and Chris Martinu.
Speaker 1: The executive producer is Louisa Lewis. Our sound engineer is
Speaker 1: Richard Ward. Video editing Toby Babalola and Evando Thompson. Guestbooking
Speaker 1: Dave Warren, Social media Alex Morgan, and the music is
Speaker 1: by Bart Walshaw. At Bloomberg Weekend, Brendan Francis Nunham is
Speaker 1: Editorial director of Audio and Special Projects, and our executive
Speaker 1: editor is Catherine Bell. We'd also like to thank Summersadi
Speaker 1: and the Bloomberg Podcast team, and thank you for listening
Speaker 1: until next weekend. Goodbye,