War correspondents are essentially isolated egoists, or at least that's the way they seem to me.
The Vietnam War seemed to bring them out of the woodwork in droves, and they were lauded by their sponsoring organisations because their reports from just behind the front lines were spectacular after the stultifying ennui of "official" reporting carried out safely from miles away. There were two types of journos during Vietnam, the sitters and the goers. The goers crawled around wearing flak vests and cammo gear, either with the front line troops or only just half a step behind them. They got spectacular footage/shots/stories, and it because almost a competitive sport to see how far you could go.
The sitters stayed in Saigon and reported the fighting crumbs from the combat tables, often gleaned or even made up from the scanty contents of American army press reports. They never ventured any further than "pacified" villages within easy reach by cab of their hotel bars.
A number of the goers were killed (and a number of the sitters, when the war came to Saigon), but the game seemed to be worth the candle - to them, anyway. I was working in the newspaper industry at the time of the collapse, and there were some Zild reporters doing stupid things in Indochina which even our troops in Vietname wouldn't have countenanced getting involved in. The goer war correspondents were regarded with bemused astonishment by most real reporters.
But were they heros? Not a chance. They were in it for number 1. They weren't out to make the world better. They weren't out to address burning issues. They weren't out to save the oppressed from their oppressors. They weren't out to stop wars. They weren't out to expose misgovernment or state terrorism. They were just out to prove to themselves and their friends how gutsy they were, and the kudos they craved were from their colleagues, not from you or me. Getting paid for doing it was just the icing on the cake.
Anyone who's seen "Under Fire" - in spite of the Hollywood razzmatazz - would get the idea!
I'm sorry for Pearl's family. But the man was a fool.
