“Spectacular Explosion” In Front Of International Television Cameras

Iraqi insurgents brought the war to the doorsteps of western correspondents today. Iraq’s national security adviser said the Baghdad attack was a “very clear” effort to take over the hotel and seize journalists as hostages.



NBC News producer Karl Bostic was in the traffic circle when the bombings happened. “I feel like I lost three lives tonight,” he told Brian Williams today. His report will air on the NBC Nightly News. “We came very close today, it is now clear, to losing some very special people,” BW blogs.
NBC wasn’t alone. Journalists in the Palestine Hotel, “including those from AP, Fox News and the U.S. government-funded Alhurra TV station,” were forced to “take refuge in the corridor,” the AP says. All the Fox employees are safe.

CNN’s camera position was about a mile and a half away from the explosions. “This is something that U.S. military commanders and Iraqi government officials have been fearing and talking about,” CNN’s Nic Robertson told Wolf Blitzer this afternoon. “They’ve been saying that they think insurgents want to try and create a spectacular explosion right in front of the international television cameras so that they can get maximum impact, to create the maximum worry in Iraq, to create the maximum impact outside of Iraq. And that is what appears to have happened.

The first two explosions, small explosions, drawing the journalists to the windows. They turned on their cameras. As the cameras turned on, that’s when that third massive explosion happened.”