We have seen great reporting this week from British TV crews risking their lives riding with the rebel army into Tripoli.
Much of the footage has been terrifyingly vivid. All hail the reporters for their skill and courage, but why do cameramen never share the credit?
The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes gave a blistering account of being ambushed by pro-Gaddafi soldiers, with a Spielberg soundtrack of close gunfire and men shouting in panic.
But who dodged live bullets to film this real-life action drama? Apparently no-one saw fit to tell viewers.
The incredible Alex Crawford, of Sky News, broadcast live to satellite from the back of a moving pickup truck, with guns blazing all around her as the rebels swarmed into Green Square.
Who would have guessed that riding with her, equally exposed to sniper fire, was a man pointing a camera, and a Sky News producer?
It’s right that reporters should make the soldiers and the civilians the focus of the story. Ego-centric tales about the crews would be quite wrong, given the scale of the suffering they are reporting.
But surely it’s also right that the invisible heroes holding the cameras should be given discreet recognition.
So anonymous are these men and women that for a significant but unlucky few the first time viewers get to hear their names is when they are killed in action.
– GARETH WEEKES, Deep South Media Ltd.