Gulf War II - CBS Baghdad webcam: Richard Engle

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Gulf War II - CBS Baghdad webcam: Richard Engle

Lots of machine-gun fire. Boom. Boom. More machine-gun fire. Sirens.

Virtual whiplash

Techs run out to the balcony. The camera is whipped around repeatedly. Sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes in wierd angles which don't come out in focus. What's going on?

A quick smoke while the gunshots ring out.

One reporter and his cameraman come out and do a very quick spot. It takes a bit to get things ready, and the reporter smokes a cigarette hurredly, fluffs his hair, and repeatedly looks behind him, slightly out of our range.

Hello? This is Richard Engle in Baghdad!

Hello? Hello? This is Richard Engle in Baghdad. I hear no IFP! Hello? Sharon? What's the latest coming over the wires? What do we know? (Police cars race by, sirens blaring. Everyone turns to watch them.) Who's blowing up Saddam statues?
That side of the river is very dangerous; I haven't been over there. Do we have someone over there with them? If we do, I think that embed will know more than I do. Okay. Okay. Okay. How long? Eight minutes from now? Fine. I'm trying to get more information. I'm hearing more explosions...
Okay. I was there; I listened to it. I hope this isn't some sort of probe, and they'll pull back tomorrow. (Chuckle.) That would look silly, it would confuse a lot of people. (Shrug.) I don't know what it is. Okay, sounds okay... (Checks mic.) Nice. Good. (Waits. Looks around. Poofs hair. Sighs.) Sounds good. You say U. S. tanks? (Long conversation on that side.) Hey Derek, how are you? Well, it's going... well, I'm not sure how it's going this morning. If this is just a probe I think it'll be very complicated. (Looks again and again to our left, where there's an animated Arabic conversation going on. Purses lips.) I no longer hear programming... oh yes, I do.
It's been a scene of considerable confusion this morning, Derek. I can run you through some of the things I heard and saw... Lots of bombing in central Baghdad, the most since that first morning of shock and awe. Around the morning it went from an air attack to a ground assault; people told me they saw U. S. troops approaching a presidential palace (across the river)... that's where there's the Al Rashid, the ministries... it's very hard to get information from over there, or to get over there, Derek?
That's it? No follow-up question, no nothing? (Big smile) Aw, I was all ready, I cut myself out early... no, he didn't! That's okay, I was ready for a whole converation. Anyway... do you need me again? (Looks at watch). You don't have a show until an hour and a half from now... I'm going to go down... let's do that live, if that's okay with you, ... I'm in no rush to rush out there and see the front line for myself. If you could reestablish IFP that'd be great too. Okay. Thanks.
(Disconnects from the audio.) (The microphone wire gets wound.)
(One last look at the techie as he packs.)

A bit of checking around finds that Richard Engle is a freelancer reporting for ABC news.

[An hour and a half later]

Hey Craig. Good morning. How are you? Nice to be seen :-) Paula! It's been so long. How are you? It's been a roller coaster. Okay, you wanna... okay... I could talk about the area. Could you tell me what the deal is? I haven't seen much of the fighting myself.... A U. S. tank? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Who shot this video? Where is this coming from? Around the morning it went from an air attack to a ground assault; people told me they saw U. S. troops approaching a presidential palace (across the river)... that's where there's the Al Rashid, the ministries... it's very hard to get information from over there, or to get over there, Derek?
Your tech guy isn't very polite. He's pushing me. (I'm very sorry sir, I'm very sorry, he was very enthusiastic, he must fix it, I hope you accept his apology.) Yours, but not his. (The problem is... he had to put something under the leg...) That's okay, these things happen. What am I going to start with today? It depends on how you come into me... Okay, I can't see very much, but I can tell you what others have told me. Then maybe you can run the VO. Some journalists went over there. I can tell you what the ministry is telling us. If you want to break it up and make it more conversational, that'd be welcome. If you want I can do it in one monologue.
Could you bring up the color? Can you white balance this [sheet of paper]? It's hard to difficult to tell you what's going on. I'm on the east side of the Tigris, a mostly residential neighborhood, which hasn't seen the kind of fighting that the west side has. A division of U. S. forces entered this area just after daybreak, from about 0630 to 0800 there was very loud sounds of fire..., some journalists took a bus tour... they got over to the ministry and there were some big explosions and they pulled back quickly. Can you put up color bars on this camera?
(Ambulance passes by; camera pans to follow it.) [Conversation with Lebanese speaker] How's Beirut? Okay. You were there? During the Israeli... Yep... I was there with the Israelis, I know what it's like not to have electricity and water; shaving in the dark. [Lots elided.]

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