Two Western photojournalists killed in Libya

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: AP

MISRATA, Libya (AP) -- Two Western photojournalists including an Oscar-nominated film director were killed Wednesday in the besieged city of Misrata while covering battles between rebels and Libyan government forces. Two others working alongside them were wounded.

British-born Tim Hetherington, co-director of the documentary "Restrepo" about U.S. soldiers on an outpost in Afghanistan, was killed inside the only rebel-held city in western Libya, said his U.S.-based publicist, Johanna Ramos Boyer. The city has come under weeks of relentless shelling by government troops.

Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer for Getty Images, was also killed.

"He has an intimacy in his work," said Swayne Hall, a longtime friend who works as a photo editor with The Associated Press. "Some people will use a long lens so they don't have to get up close. But Chris will get up close, he's just not afraid to be with whatever he's photographing.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_LIBYA_PHOTOGRAPHERS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[benboot]

1. We need to get out of Libya now. What happened to a few days?

This is crazy. We are out another billion dollars.

[aquart]

2. Uh, the problem is that NATO is not in there.

Just a lotta Libyans killing each other.

What, precisely, is it you think we are doing? Shooting journalists?

[applegrove]

3. very sad.

[Turborama]

4. "Restrepo" director Tim Hetherington killed in Libya: doctors

Source: Reuters

By Michael Georgy

MISRATA, Libya | Wed Apr 20, 2011 8:47pm EDT

- Fighting in Libya's besieged rebel city of Misrata killed at least 10 civilians including an Oscar-nominated British filmmaker, and NATO urged non-combatants to avoid troops so it could step up air strikes.

Among the dead were British photojournalist Tim Hetherington, co-director of Oscar-nominated war documentary "Restrepo," and American photographer Chris Hondros, killed when a group they were in came under mortar fire.

Seven Libyan civilians and a Ukrainian doctor were also killed during fierce fighting in Libya's third largest city, medics said.

France promised the insurgents on Wednesday it would intensify air strikes on Libyan government forces and dispatch military liaison officers, echoing a move by Britain, to help organize poorly trained insurgents.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110421

---

FILE - In this 2007 file publicity image released by
Outpost Films, photographer Tim Hetherington, is shown
at the Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley,
Afghanistan, during the filming of their documentary
'Restrepo'.

[nolabear]

5. Terrible, terrible loss. God, when will this waste of human life end?

Sometimes I want to tear my hair and weep.

[Scottybeamer70]

6. How terribly sad

that so many innocent people have to die for the corporations! Now they are saying
a second photographer has also died from his wounds. When will we ever stop this
corporation/military nonsense?????

[tabatha]

8. It was Gaddafi's forces who killed him.

Last Twitter post from Tim Hetherington: "In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Gaddafi forces. No sign of Nato."

[daleo]

10. The details in the article were vague

It isn't clear whether he was actually accompanying the rebel forces or not. That would make a difference.

[tabatha]

11. Report

http://youtu.be/7JGWlFbSVdE

[Schema Thing]

9. What.The.Holy.Fuck are you on about?

[Botany]

7. Restrepo was brilliant

I have a good friend's son who was stationed there .... he told his mom who told me that
film was spot on about the real story.

Real journalism = Tim Hetherington

RIP Tim Hetherington

[Baclava]

12. Agreed - - RIP

How far would you go for a work of art? Directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger went all the way to a remote part of Afghanistan to bring us their powerful documentary "Restrepo." And when they got there, all they did was spend ten months in the middle of some of the most intense fighting in the war. When they were shot at, when they were blown up by a roadside bomb, they didn't flinch. Even more impressively, they kept the cameras rolling.

This seems like an astonishing sacrifice, but I imagine Hetherington and Junger don't look at it that way. They would probably argue that they made no sacrifice greater than that of their subjects, the men of U.S. Outpost Restrepo, and they who don't view what they're doing as a sacrifice either. For the soldiers stationed at Restrepo, a tiny 15-man encampment on top of a hill in the middle of intimidating Korengal Valley, their work in Afghanistan is exactly that: a job. A dangerous job, but a job nonetheless.

Hetherington and Junger's film makes no attempt to justify or contextualize the activities at Restrepo, when you're in taking fire and mortars, justification and context don't matter very much. Their approach brings the War in Afghanistan into terrifying clarity for those of us fortunate enough to previously know it only as a talking point on news programs.

"Restrepo" makes us reconsider not only the war in Afghanistan, but movie violence in general. It's hard to look at gunfights onscreen the same way after you've seen it. In fiction movies, we never see bullets, just muzzle flashes and men falling over. Most times, there isn't even any blood. "Restrepo" shows us the reality: when you are in a firefight, you can actually see bullets flying at you, red hot lead slicing through the sky like flying razors. I will never forget that image as long as I live.

http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/02/tim-hetherington-and-sebastian.php

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. shh now they have their cover story for escalating the invasion and arms deals.