[THE GUARDIAN - 01 MARCH 2000]
ITN reporter 'bent over backwards for accuracy' by Julia Hartley-Brewer.
An ITN reporter told the high court yesterday that he bent over backwards to present an accurate picture of the "terrible inhumanity" and appalling conditions in a Serb-run detention camp in Bosnia.
Ian Williams, who is suing Living Marxism magazine for libel over claims that he and other ITN journalists deliberately fabricated an image of an emaciated Muslim prisoner which became one of the most powerful and enduring images of the conflict, denied that he had taken sides against the Serbs.
He said: "The only attachment we had was to find out the truth and present what we found in a properly balanced manner. I believe we bent over backwards to present the pictures we obtained in context."
Mr Williams, 41, said he stood by his August 1992 report for Channel 4 news on the camp at Trnopolje. He rejected a claim by Living Marxism that the image of Fikret Alic, the emaciated man behind barbed wire, was misleading and had been created by "camera angles and editing".
Mr Williams, his colleague Penny Marshall, and ITN are claiming damages over a press release, editorial and article headed The picture that fooled the world, published by the magazine.
The article, published in February 1997, asserted that the camp was not a prison but a collection centre for refugees, and that the barbed wire surrounded the news team who were filming from a small enclosure next to the camp.
Mr Williams told Mr Justice Morland and the jury that he was at first incredulous and then angered by the "outrageous" allegations. "I don't think that image is at all misleading. It is a perfectly apt image encapsulating the suffering of those men in that field," he added.
Mr Williams, who travelled by bus to Trnopolje in north-west Bosnia with his ITN colleagues and Guardian journalist Ed Vulliamy, described the men in the camp as "in an appalling physical state ... emaciated, dirty and clearly very, very frightened".
He told Tom Shields QC, for ITN, that it was "absurd" to claim that the ITN crew had filmed from a compound surrounded by barbed wire. "Our report never suggested there was barbed wire surrounding the camp. What it showed was that there was a compound in which men were clearly imprisoned."
Earlier, Mr Shields said Living Marxism's editor, Michael Hume, was "intent on adopting a hostile stance to journalists of the west and western powers".
Mr Shields said the allegations had "gravely defamed" ITN and its reporters, suggesting that they had conspired to "distort the truth to fit in with their supposedly anti-Serb and pro-Muslim views".
Living Marxism, which denies libel and pleads fair comment, claims that no one would have understood its publications to refer to ITN, and claims Ms Marshall and Mr Williams deliberately misrepresented the situation in the camp.
[THE INDEPENDENT - 01 MARCH 2000]
Magazine claims 'vindictive' says ITN reporter by Jan Colley.
An ITN reporter told the High Court in London yesterday he bent over backwards to present responsibly the "terrible inhumanity" of Serb-run detention camps in the Bosnia war.
Ian Williams, who is suing Living Marxism magazine for libel over claims that he misrepresented an image of an emaciated Muslim, denied that he had taken sides. "Rarely have I been the subject of such a vindictive and bitter attack upon my person and my reputation as a journalist," he said.
Mr Williams, 41, said he stood by his August 1992 report and rejected a claim by the magazine that the image of Fikret Alic behind barbed wire was created by "camera angles and editing". He said: "I don't know what it means, but I do know we shot what we saw - and what we saw was starving, emaciated men in prison behind barbed wire."
Mr Williams' colleague, Penny Marshall, and ITN are claiming damages over a press release, article and editorial headed "The picture that fooled the world", that was published by the left-wing magazine in January/February 1997. They claim the publications meant that they had "conned" the world by broadcasting distorted footage which deliberately misrepresented and sensationalised the treatment of Muslims at the Trnopolje camp.
Living Marxism, which denies libel, asserted that there was no barbed wire surrounding Trnopolje which, it said, was a collection centre for refugees and not a prison, and that the barbed wire in fact surrounded the news team who were filming from a small enclosure next to the camp.
In its defence, the magazine relies on fair comment and argues that no one would have understood its publications to refer to ITN. In relation to Ms Marshall and Mr Williams, the magazine pleads justification and claims that the journalists had deliberately misrepresented Mr Alic's situation by the selective use of shots of him.
The hearing continues today.
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