CNN armed guard returns fire!

Gee Ted, and we though YOU believed in gun control! Why would ANYONE ever
need an “ASSAULT RIFLE” (ooh bad, evil) let a machine gun (full auto
AK-47)?

Media Watchdog Concerned CNN Had Armed Guard
Sun Apr 13, 1:45 PM ET Add Entertainment – Reuters TV to My Yahoo!

PARIS (Reuters) – A
PARIS (Reuters) – A media watchdog expressed concern on Sunday that a CNN
team reporting from Iraq (news – web sites) was traveling with an armed
guard, saying it set a “dangerous precedent” that could imperil other
journalists.

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Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) made the comments after an incident in the
northern Iraqi town of Tikrit in which a security guard hired by CNN fired
his machinegun at a checkpoint when the CNN convoy came under gunfire.

“This behavior creates a dangerous precedent that could imperil all other
reporters covering this conflict and others in the future,” Robert Menard,
RSF secretary general, said in a statement.

“There is a real risk that belligerents will believe all press vehicles
are armed,” he said, adding that the use of armed private security guards
only increased the confusion between reporters and combatants in the conflict.

Media organizations have employed armed guards to protect premises in
particularly dangerous places.

But a spokesman for the Paris-based media watchdog said it was
unprecedented for journalists to travel with armed guards in conflict zones.

“To our knowledge, this is the first time press vehicles have traveled
with armed security guards. It did not happen in the Balkans and it didn’t
occur in the first Gulf War (news – web sites),” RSF spokesman Jean-Francois
Julliard said.

“CNN appears to be going too far. This could come back to haunt them and
other journalists. Journalists should not be traveling around with armed
guards,” he added.

CNN spokesman Matthew Firman said the team of reporters had come under
small arms and automatic weapons fire from “relatively close range” either on
the way in or out of Tikrit.

He said an Iraqi Kurd, hired as a security guard, had opened fire in
response and been lightly wounded in the exchange. No one else was hurt.

Pointing to an earlier CNN report of an alleged assassination plot by
Iraqi agents against its reporters in the north, Firman said locals had been
hired in Kurdish-controlled Iraq to protect the station’s journalists.

“Presumably we hire them to protect us, so if firing their weapon is
required to protect themselves and our team, then that is appropriate,” he said,
in response to questions about CNN’s policy of hiring armed guards.

“We only put our teams in situations in which we can do our best to ensure
their safety. If it means hiring armed guards or security consultants we
will do that. The security of our team is paramount,” Firman said.