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Life at the front: Lara Logan in her own words
GMTV's war correspondent Lara Logan explains why she, and not ITN's Julian Manyon, is still at the front line
by Jessica Hodgson
Monday November 5, 2001
MediaGuardian
After a month in Afghanistan, I am the only British journalist actually living on the front line. The other journalist is a male colleague from Fox News. I have a GMTV cameraman and an interpreter.
We live at the old Bagram airbase just outside Kabul, within sight of the Taliban and close enough to be woken through the night by the B52 bombs that blew the roof off my hut last night and shattered what windows it had left.
Julian Manyon [ITN's Asia correspondent] sleeps some 20 miles behind the front line but arrives each day and asks for help - which I happily agree to as his ITN colleagues were great during the period when I was waiting for our cameraman to arrive.
They even took me to hospital when I was sick recently.
I'm sure Julian meant the reference to Mata Hari in a lighthearted way, although I am surprised he has so much time to write lengthy articles for magazines.
I was limited by my office to a 10-minute chat each day with the Daily Record.
If General Babajan smiles around me, perhaps it is because I offer him respect and attempt, at least, to talk to him in a non-demanding manner, an elementary part of making contacts and thereby getting the story.
He also smiles around Steve, my colleague from Fox News, who adopts a similar journalistic manner.
And guess what? Steve is also allowed to stay. It's not rocket science, it's understanding people.
It is not easy being a western woman here, one can only hope that fellow western colleagues would not fall back on hoary old chestnuts as an excuse to explain to their newsdesks why they are not getting access to the story.
Source: UK Guardian registration required