Jane Ferguson details career reporting in war zones in memoir ‘No Ordinary Assignment’
Jane Ferguson:
There's probably more than I even know. I often think about, that there are the close calls that we know about.
There have been a number of incredibly near-misses. I write about this in the book. When I was in Syria, and I was in the very early days of the conflict, when we were really still calling it a revolution, but it was turning into an armed uprising, and a very small amount of journalists were getting smuggled into Homs city.
And I was supposed to go in for around a week. That was the original plan. But I left because I was very well aware that the situation was so unstable, that the — this rebel enclave that I was in, in Syria was so vulnerable to attack. I left early. And the next journalist to be brought in was Marie Colvin, who was a much, much more experienced, more senior journalist writing for The Sunday Times of London."
And she was killed there. So there have been times again and again where that's happened, again, in Afghanistan. I left Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul. Myself and my colleague Eric stayed as long as we could. We stayed for 10 days. And then, eventually, the one place that we were able to stay was with the British military.
They said: "Listen, we're clearing this out and handing it over to the Taliban tomorrow. You must get on a flight out of here."
And we got on a flight out. And every single day, we had been standing at the Abbey Gate reporting for the "NewsHour," interviewing Afghans as they were desperately trying to get on evacuation flights. Just a matter of hours after we get on that plane, the bombing goes off at the Abbey Gate.
So I still don't know if it's luck or grace or an act of God, but I have been spared many times in my life. I'm very grateful.
Source: PBS NewsHour
