BROOKE GLADSTONE: From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I’m Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I’m Bob Garfield. Monday is Memorial Day. Some argue that it was first unofficially observed in Charleston in the spring of 1865, when former slaves exhumed 257 Union soldiers buried en masse in a Confederate prison camp and then solemnly reburied them with honor. It was a two-week effort, capped by a parade led by thousands of black children.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The first formal observance came a few years later and was extended to fallen soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and later to the military dead in all America's wars. But in this age of asymmetrical war, information war, message war, we thought we'd take the occasion to recall certain journalists lost in the field, not necessarily dead, lost.
[ISIS PROPAGANDA CLIP]:
JOHN CANTLIE: Hello there, I’m John Cantlie, the British citizen abandoned by my government and a long-term prisoner of the Islamic State. In this program, we’ll see how the Western governments are hastily marching towards all-out war…
BOB GARFIELD: British journalist John Cantlie was kidnapped by ISIS in Syria, along with American freelance reporter James Foley, in November of 2012. Foley was beheaded, Cantlie’s head was – preserved.
[CLIP]:
JOHN CANTLIE: I’m gonna show you the truth behind the systems and motivation of the Islamic State and how the Western media, the very organization I used to work for, can twist and manipulate that truth.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: Periodically, he pops up in ISIS propaganda, either as captive or playing a reporter, determinedly, as if his life depended on it, which, of course, it does.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: In an issue of the ISIS magazine Dabiq last year, Cantlie urged his family fighting for his release, with no apparent help from the British government, to stop. “Let it go,” he wrote, “get on with your lives.”
[CLIP]:
JOHN CANTLIE: We are patrolling [LAUGHS] the streets of Mosul. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden a motorcycle, se [LAUGHS] seeing that the police are almost redundant, there’s really very little crime being committed.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: But Cantlie had a life before. As the BBC noted, his portfolio was stacked with adventure features, ranging from extreme sports to off-road motorcycling.
[CLIP]:
JOHN CANTLIE: I’m about to ride the most expensive and fastest Italian sports bike on the market.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: He was known as a seasoned professional who got the job done with an abundance of good humor.
[CLIP]:
JOHN CANTLIE: I’m about to ride this 140-horsepower beast around 300 square meters of 50-year-old tarmac. Are you ready for this kind of experience?
[MOTOR REVVING SOUNDS]
This is ridiculous, this is ridiculous! [LAUGHING] I can’t work in these conditions! I have standards.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: A journalist who had worked in some of the most dangerous countries in the world – Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Syria.
[CLIPS/MUSIC UP & UNDER]:
JOHN CANTLIE: [LAUGHING] This is how we secretly got into Syria, very quietly.
MAN: Yeah.
JOHN CANTLIE: Nobody can hear us arrive. [LAUGHS] It’s top secret.
JOHN CANTLIE: After two weeks, it was time to leave the arable fields and olive groves of Northern Syria. We’d seen just a fraction of what the Assad regime is doing to its citizens, but it’s pretty shocking.
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When we planned this hour, we were hoping to hear what Cantlie’s colleagues, his friends and family and his government would say about him, but we soon learned that almost no one would say anything. They feared their words could hasten his death. And some of them are also uneasy with the role he's taken on.
So he decided to use the plight of John Cantlie as the fulcrum for a broader exploration of the challenges now confronting intrepid chroniclers of war. The era is long past when reporters could move between warring camps without explicit targets on their backs. The era is long past when most journalists had powerful media companies to defend them. And it's long past when combatants needed reporters to get their stories out. Oh, they’re still useful in shaping narratives but not as interpreters, rather as cash cows, public relations pawns and feature players in snuff videos.
BOB GARFIELD: But Cantlie’s role in the ISIS media machine is, as far as we can tell, unique.
CHARLIE WINTER: It’s an example of Islamic State’s impressive defiance in the face of the rest of the world, in the fact that they have got this guy who’s from a Crusader country basically towing the line. I think that that energizes people.
BOB GARFIELD: Charlie Winter, based at Georgia State University's Transcultural Conflict & Violence Initiative, is an ISIS expert. He says whether Cantlie believes or does not believe the things he says is beside the point.
CHARLIE WINTER: There has been this sort of narrative of whether Cantlie has, has gone to the other side, whether he believes the things he’s saying. I mean, this is a man who's been held by Islamic State for a number of years now and he is in total self-preservation mode. If he’s saying things that the propagandists want him to say and he’s saying them convincingly, then that’s going to improve his chances of survival. I do think it's kind of irrelevant to question where his loyalties lie.
[CLIPS]:
JOHN CANTLIE: Sunni Muslims can now walk on the streets of Mosul without fear of sheer oppression.
JOHN CANTLIE: I’m struck by just how normal and crazy [LAUGHS] and busy everything is. This is not a city living in fear, as the Western media would have you believe.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: Cantlie’s first kidnap occurred when he illegally slipped into Syria in July, 2012. He was shot and badly wounded during an escape attempt. A week after his abduction, he was rescued by forces of the Free Syrian Army fighting the rule of Bashar al-Assad. His second abduction occurred soon after the first one and at nearly the same place. Since then, former fellow captives have spoken of special tortures inflicted on British and American prisoners, including waterboarding.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Nearly two years after Cantlie was taken, his friend and editor at the Telegraph newspaper, Colin Freeman wrote, quote, “Some of the reporting of his predicament have painted him as the author of his own plight, a devil-may-care adrenaline junkie who didn't know where to draw the line.” “But,” Freeman continued, “that isn’t the John I know. The John I know is aware of the dangers all too well but chose to face them in order to document the brutality of the Assad regime firsthand.
French journalist Nicolas Hénin shared a cell with Cantlie and others, until his ransom was paid.
NICOLAS HÉNIN: Cantlie is a great journalist. He is a wonderful storyteller. So they realized the asset that he is for them, and they played a bit with him doing some reporting for their sake. When you’re a hostage, you're just merchandise; you're just something that you keep in the fridge and waiting for a good use.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And so, he remains “in the fridge” until retrieved by ISIS, looking ever-more shrunken and sapped. In a BBC interview after his first abduction, Cantlie shared some of what went through his mind while in captivity.
[CLIP]:
JOHN CANTLIE: There were times when I actually thought, what’s it feel like when, when you’re shot in the back of the head, you know, when you’re kneeling and blindfolded? You know, is there pain, does it just go dark? Then when, you know, they were sharpening the knives, you’re like, you know, what does it feel like when someone pulls your head back and actually slices your throat? Can you taste the blood gurgling down your windpipe? It’s – these are not nice thoughts.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: These days, of course, we cannot know his thoughts. Just before his comrade in captivity, the journalist Jim Foley, was beheaded, Foley spoke words put into his mouth by his murderers. No one condemns him for that. Unlike the outpouring of support and heartbreak that followed Foley's death, Cantlie’s sporadic appearances seem to inspire a kind of – indifference.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Case in point, a petition has been created in Britain to raise awareness about Cantlie's plight. All such petitions run for six months. At least 10,000 signatures are required to get the British government to respond; 100,000 are required to make it a parliamentary debate. The deadline is August 8th. So far, it has 3,800.
[MUSIC UP & UNDER]
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, why journalists are such ripe and ready targets, and why you should care.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media.
