James Brolan

James Brolan (7 April 1964 – 29 May 2006) was a British freelance journalist and television sound technician, who was killed while working for CBS News in Baghdad, Iraq.[1][2][3] Just one month before he was killed in Iraq, Brolan, as part the CBS News team that covered the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, received the 2005 Overseas Press Club Award—the David Kaplan Award for Best Television Spot News Reporting From Abroad.[4][5][6]

Personal

James Brolan grew up in Holloway, London and attended St Joseph's RC Primary School in Holborn and later St. Aloysius College in Highgate. Brolan had military experience as he had served with the British Army, including tours of duty in Northern Ireland, between 1983-1988. He resided in Tufnell Park near Dartmouth Park.[7][8][9]

Based in London, he was survived by his wife of 20 years, Geri Brolan, and their two children, Sam and Agatha.[1][8]

Career

As a sound technician for CBS News, James Brolan worked in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.[10] He also had worked in the Himalayas in Nepal while with ABC News.[7][11][12] During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Brolan worked with Bob Woodruff of ABC News. Later, Woodruff and his cameraman would be injured in a bombing on 29 January 2006, four months before Brolan was killed.[13] With both ABC and CBS in Iraq, Brolan was part of the "embedded journalist" system that was created by the military for the 2003 Iraq War whereby journalists were assigned units and became dependent upon those units and their standing in the chain of command for information and access to the coverage of the war zone.[14]

2005 Pakistan earthquake

James Brolan was part of the award-winning CBS team that covered the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan. The team included producer Andy Clarke, reporter Richard Roth, camera operator Nick Turner, and Brolan as sound technician.[4]

Death

James Brolan continued to work with CBS producer Andy Clarke in Iraq.[15] Camera operator Paul Douglas, Brolan, and an Iraqi translator named "Sam",[16] were with Captain James "Alex" Funkhouser of the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, with whom they were embedded,[1][10] when a car bomb was detonated by a remote phone call. The explosion of the 500-pound bomb killed them on 29 May 2006 and wounded CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier,[17][16] as well as six soldiers.[18][19] Dozier has said that Brolan was killed immediately.

The CBS news team was supposed to be covering a "Memorial Day" story about how troops were spending their holiday, but the embed host made a stop at checkpoint in the Karrada district of Baghdad. It was in Karrada that they were attacked. The US military later issued a report that blamed the attack on insecure communications and lack of additional security planning for the news team.[20]

Context

According to Reporters Without Borders, more journalists have been killed in the Iraq War than in any other war since World War II.[21]

The Rory Peck Foundation raised £8,000 in a 2011 cricket game challenging CBS in honor of fallen journalists Paul Douglas and James Brolan.[22]

Dozier's book Breathing the Fire, published in 2008, covers the event and her work with Brolan and Douglas.

The families of Douglas and Brolan attended the opening for a journalists memorial in Bayeux, France, on the day before 2007 World Press Freedom Day, which is held 3 May every year. The names of both men are listed on the memorial. The memorial was established in the location of the first liberated French city during World War II. Reporters Without Borders estimated that 1,889 journalists had been killed from 1944-2007.[21]

References
  1. McNamara, Melissa (11 February 2009). "Fallen CBS Journalists Remembered". CBS News. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  2. Phillips, Mark (11 February 2009). "A Tribute To CBS News' Paul Douglas". CBS News. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  3. "James Brolan". Committee to Protect Journalists. 29 May 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  4. Stelter, Brian (18 April 2006). "CBS Wins Two Overseas Press Club Awards". Media Bistro. Archived from the original on 11 April 2013. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  5. Hernandez, Nelson; Aldin, Salih Saif (30 May 2006). "Iraq Blast Kills Two On Crew For CBS". Washington Post. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  6. "CBS Casualties Of War". Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  7. Rappai, Sunita. "Tributes to 'brave, funny and talented' soundman". Camden New Journal. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  8. Smith, Stephen (11 February 2009). "James Brolan Family Statement". CBS News. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  9. "Iraq victims 'were war veterans'". 30 May 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  10. PA (29 May 2006). "British journalists killed in Iraq - Middle East - World". The Independent. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  11. "Mounting Our Own Everest". ABC News. 31 May 2003. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  12. Phillips, Mark (27 May 2007). "James Brolan Remembered". CBS News. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  13. Germanm (29 May 2006). "Bob Woodruff on CBS News journalists". ABC News. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  14. Willis, Jim (2010). 100 Media Moments That Changed America. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 174–175. ISBN 978-0-313-35518-9.
  15. Cunliffe, James (8 December 2007). "TV crew killed after line leak | Bedfordshire News". Bedfordshire News. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  16. Dozier, Kimberly (17 May 2008). "Kimberly Dozier: Technically, I Was Dead - Newsweek and The Daily Beast". Thedailybeast.com. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  17. "Kimberly Dozier Returns to Iraq for First time Since 2006 Attack - TVNewser". Mediabistro.com. 21 December 2009. Archived from the original on 11 November 2012. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  18. "Paul Douglas - Journalists Killed". Committee to Protect Journalists. 29 May 2006. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  19. Perry, Cal (7 June 2008). "Seeing CBS's Dozier near death". CNN. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  20. Stokes, Lucy (7 August 2007). "Cameraman was unlawfully killed | Bedfordshire News". Bedfordshire News. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  21. "The French town of Bayeux and Reporters Without Borders inaugurate a journalists memorial on the eve of World Freedom Day". Reporters Without Borders. 3 May 2007. Archived from the original on 9 January 2014. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  22. "CBS v Rory Peck Charity Cricket Match (2011)". The Rory Peck Trust. 5 February 2013. Archived from the original on 3 December 2012. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
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