by Aimee Rinehart
Jeff Newton works for 60 Minutes with CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan. The segment “Ramadi Embed” won Logan’s CBS News team the David Kaplan Award for best TV spot news reporting from abroad. This segment has also won the Radio-Television News Directors Assocation’s Edward R. Murrow Award and was honored with an Emmy nomination. Newton first began covering military affairs in 1993 as a newspaper reporter. He has spent much of the past five years in Iraq, making more than a dozen trips for 60 Minutes. OPC Bulletin editor Aimee Rinehart spoke with him recently via e-mail about his reporting career.
OPC: In April you produced a segment for 60 Minutes about an average Iraqi who cannot cross Baghdad safely. How do you find people like Mahmud al Wadi, and does following him endanger his life?
JEFF NEWTON: Finding these folks is what takes the most time because in Iraq telling your story can get you killed. We are very careful to make sure the people in our stories understand the risk. And we do our best to protect them from risk as best we can. In this piece, we used ONLY Iraqi cameramen when they were in the streets and in their homes. That helps with the family’s safety on a number of different levels. For the two-camera formal shoots, we brought them to the hotel where our Western crews took over. That meant that nobody saw huge film crews coming and going from their house. It was safer for CBS personnel and for the family as well. They did have to travel to us. And that had its own risk. But everyone in Baghdad takes that risk when they leave their home. Nobody is safe from the violence there anymore. The best you can hope to do is minimize EVERYONE’s risk, crew family, etc.
OPC: Can you really get close to reality on the ground to do effective reporting and research in Iraq?
NEWTON: I think you can. But it is certainly not the ideal place to work. Everything takes so much longer. You spend five times as much on each story than if you were to do it in say, Jordan or Kuwait, for instance.
You also have to learn to make the reality on the ground an attribute in your storytelling, and not a negative. Use the difficulty of getting around, the danger of the country, the obstacles, as something to highlight so people get a real feel of what has to be done to simply tell a story. Lara Logan, my boss, works hard on that. She wants you to not just see the clips and sound bites. She really wants to take you on a journey.
OPC: You were part of the news team that won an OPC award for “Ramadi Embed.” What was it like to win?
NEWTON: It is always so great to be recognized for your hard work. For me, as well as the whole team, it felt great winning. We knew that Ramadi had to be told. Here were these young Marines in the middle of the most violent city in Iraq at the time, slugging it out day in and day out. And whether you agree with the war or not, you have to be interested in what they were doing there and the sacrifices they were making. It really moved Lara, Max, Tom and myself to win this. We felt like we were telling a really important and compelling story. And it was really great that Rome Hartman, who was the head of the Evening News at the time, supported this project with such conviction. There had been so many combat stories up to that point. And he had the vision to see beyond the guns and explosions to see the story was really these men.
OPC: What has the transition from print journalism to associate producer for television been like?
NEWTON: The transition has been good at times and difficult at other times. I am still a reporter. I still love reporting. The biggest obstacle has been learning television and it’s technical side and convincing people that print people can make great television people. I still have a long way to go on that one. I think if you like story telling, you can do either. You just have to learn the tools of each trade. And if you really want to make the transition, you just need to find a niche and stand out. My niche is military operations, which I covered for 15 years as a print guy. When 9/11 happened there was a need for guys like me. And it happened to be when I was trying to make the leap. Having good mentors is also really important because having someone in the business encourage you when others are whispering that you are not a “broadcaster” is so important. Mine was Jeff Fager and there is no better mentor in the business. And Lara helped so much too because she stuck by me when I was making the transition. She told me I was good and remained loyal to me through my change from print reporter to producer.
OPC: From your background as a military reporter, what has been useful and what has hindered your reporting in Iraq ?
NEWTON: Well, it is always useful to know the subject matter of the people you are covering and being a beat reporter who covered the military for so many years helped me move beyond the surface and allowed me to concentrate on the bigger and meatier issues without having to worry about ranks and acronyms and all that jazz. It hurts in some ways because people can pigeon hole you as a person who ONLY covers terrorism and military stories. Which is silly, because I also covered a city beat, congressional issues and a statehouse on my way to where I am today. But people either forget that or it is so far back in my career they did not know that. I got into military reporting not because I was a want-to-be soldier or anything like that, but because 15 years ago I saw the value in covering this giant institution, with all its money, faults, power and corruption. It seemed an untapped market at the time. Nobody wanted to be a military reporter 15 years ago. Now everyone wants to a so-called military writer so they use it as a means to get to and then cover the war on terror.
OPC: When you’re covering a war zone, is there camaraderie among competing news outlets that might not otherwise be there?
NEWTON: I think there is a real competitiveness, but there is also a camaraderie, if that makes any sense. People want to break big news first, but they also help each other out when they can, because in a place like Iraq , friends are hard to come by. You may never know when you need help yourself. So you better be good to people when you can. Karma can come back and get you if you are not cool to people. Some of my best friends are from places like Iraq and Afghanistan . And being back in New York is hard sometimes because the people who know you best are often over there. I am not sure if it is a plus or minus to my work. I just look at those relationships as a part of me and a part of my life. And without them the work would just be work and not a calling. And when people are trying to kill you, it better be your calling. I know it is certainly my calling. And I know it is Lara’s as well.
OPC: Does CBS News have a “re-entry” process for reporters or do you just step off the plane and begin New York life?
NEWTON: We step off the plane and take some down time to relax and re-adjust. I usually take a week around the house for every month or two I am away. I make sure I eat out with friends and get back into my life as best as I can. I like to play ice hockey when I am home. I like to hike. I read a lot of books in the quiet of my Brooklyn apartment. If I needed help and I asked CBS to help me re-adjust, the help would be there for me or any other CBS employee. I am sure of that. I just have been doing this long enough not to be too stressed out when I get home. New York cab drivers stress me out more than life in Baghdad. Because I am used to life in Baghdad . Ya know?
OPC: Are there other parts of the world, or topics that you would like to cover?
NEWTON: I would love to cover Russia more and China too. I am intrigued by how cool South America is yet the continent gets so little coverage these days. I guess I just love foreign work so much, you could send me anywhere and I would find a cool story to cover. I am always upset that the world beyond our borders is not covered more than it is. I am one of those guys that liked to stay up late as a kid and listen to BBC cricket scores from Sri Lanka or the West Indies . And I don’t even like cricket. I am in love with the idea that the world beyond our borders is so vast and interesting. And I want to explore it. The news business is such a great way to do that.