Podcast Summary: Throughline (NPR) – "From the Frontlines"

Original Air Date: October 2, 2025
Hosts: Rund Abdelfattah & Ramtin Arablouei
Featured Guests: Enes Baba (NPR Gaza correspondent), Frances “Frankie” Fitzgerald (Pulitzer-winning Vietnam War reporter), Walter Rogers (retired CNN journalist), Susan Carruthers (war media historian)

Episode Overview

This episode of Throughline explores the perilous work of frontline war correspondents, tracing their roles and challenges from the Vietnam War to the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. Through interviews, personal accounts, and historical analysis, the show highlights how war reporting brings uncomfortable truths to light, the pressures journalists face, and what’s at risk when their voices are silenced.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reporting From Gaza: Bearing Witness in a War Zone

• Enes Baba describes the extraordinary dangers and hardships he and other local journalists endure daily in Gaza, where reporting itself is an act of survival:

  • Journalists are deliberately targeted (01:00, 02:42), often lacking proper gear due to fear of being identified as press (02:42).
  • “You just feel that you’re gonna be the next person to be covered with white shrouds…and your own colleagues is [sic] taking photos of you, taking you to the cemetery…” – Enes Baba (01:17)
  • Almost all of the 220 journalists killed since Oct 7, 2023 are Palestinian; foreign journalists have been barred from entering (03:44).

• The dual burden of documenting suffering while experiencing it:

  • Enes recounts living amid continuous bombardment, collecting clean water, and reporting deaths, often with little or no food (41:11–44:08).
  • “You are documenting suffering and at the same time you are experiencing it in yourself.” – Enes Baba (41:50)
  • The psychological toll is immense—attending friends’ funerals who were killed as journalists (47:51).

• Barriers to reporting:

  • Israeli surveillance and direct threats, including drone warnings and calls from Israeli officials to evacuate (48:24).
  • Social media is unreliable due to infrastructure destruction; local reporting becomes critical for outside understanding (49:24).

2. War Journalism Across History: Vietnam, Iraq & Beyond

• Vietnam War – "The Uncensored War" (08:02–22:45)

  • Early reporting was uncensored; journalists could freely access the frontlines.
  • Frances “Frankie” Fitzgerald recounts her freelancing days in Vietnam, emphasizing the challenge of centering Vietnamese perspectives in US-centric media (12:11–16:22).
    • "The American high command knew nothing about the Vietnamese." – Fitzgerald (14:02)
    • Details about napalm victims and other horrors were sometimes omitted as she feared readers would not believe them (17:24–18:01).
  • Landmark moments: Walter Cronkite’s famous broadcast after the Tet Offensive changed public opinion and politics (21:30–22:01).

• Post-Vietnam Shift: Censorship and Control

  • The Vietnam experience led US and UK militaries to never allow such uncensored reporting again (22:51, Susan Carruthers).

• Embedded Journalism in Iraq & the Gulf Wars

  • Walter Rogers (CNN) details his "embedded" experiences in Iraq, where reporting was tightly controlled (25:13–29:45). There were moments when management censored material to match the administration's narrative:
    • "Sometimes they would say, well, the White House won’t like this, so they tempered your reporting." – Walter Rogers (29:31)
    • “Would you use the word censorship?” “Yes. Yes, I would.” – Rogers (29:48–29:52)
  • Embedding was a response to complaints about lack of access in previous wars, but led to new forms of control (30:14–31:55).

• Role and Risks for Local Reporters

  • Local journalists take the greatest risks and do the “hard work” as foreign media retreats to safety (36:39–37:54).
    • “The people who are really doing the hard work of reporting on the wars…are taking on different kinds of dangers with incredible bravery…” – Susan Carruthers (37:27)

3. The Power and Perils of Narrative

• Language and Allegiance

  • Discussion of how terms like “terrorism” shape coverage and the public perception of legitimate/illegitimate violence (34:08–34:51, Carruthers; 34:56, Rogers).
    • “…that powerful, delegitimizing tag [terrorism] does an awful lot of work…to silence voices…” – Susan Carruthers (34:56)
  • Journalists wrestle with questions about responsibility to truth, audience, employers, and humanity (35:43, 18:23).
    • “Is journalism’s role to push the conversation if that’s where the truth is leading?” – Rund Abdelfattah (18:23)

• Mental and Emotional Toll

  • War correspondents struggle with PTSD, substance abuse, and emotional detachment as coping mechanisms (35:52–36:01).
  • Finding humanity—covering "the enemy," working with local fixers, and the debt owed to them (36:05–36:39, Rogers).

• The Social and Political Stakes

  • When journalists are silenced or controlled, the truth is buried—literally and figuratively (02:14, Enes Baba).
  • Repeated calls for the protection of Palestinian journalists and opening Gaza to foreign reporters (45:03, 45:18).

4. Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On grief and risk:
  “Maybe, I'm sorry to say this, but I hate to show my own emotions, especially when I'm talking about a colleague. Not because I'm... Now I'm heartless. No. We still practice our own humanity every single day.”
  – Enes Baba (46:36)

• On limitations of reporting:
  "What we are reporting here from Gaza is only 10% from the reality."
  – Enes Baba (46:01)

• On the purpose of journalism:
  "I wanted to give the voices of the people here, the innocents who are often reduced to numbers or headlines."
  – Enes Baba (50:36)

• On internal censorship:
  “Everybody had this internal censor which sort of said, you know, how far can I go with this?”
  – Frances 'Frankie' Fitzgerald (18:01)

• On US media control:
  “Would you use the word censorship?”
  “Yes. Yes, I would.”
  – Rund Abdelfattah & Walter Rogers (29:48–29:52)

Timestamps for Significant Segments

• 00:49–02:14: Enes Baba recounts the targeting and killing of journalist colleagues in Gaza.
• 08:02–22:45: Historical analysis of Vietnam War reporting with Frances Fitzgerald and Susan Carruthers; antiwar movement and shift in public perception.
• 25:08–31:55: The embedding of journalists in Iraq; Walter Rogers recounts reporting constraints and censorship.
• 33:00–37:54: The evolving burden for local war reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• 39:38–47:51: In-depth on-the-ground interview with Enes Baba in Gaza, highlighting the dual burdens, daily realities, and emotional toll.
• 48:24–49:24: Surveillance, threats, and interference with journalistic work in Gaza.
• 50:36–54:15: Enes reflects on why he continues reporting, his motivations, and perceptions of Palestinian journalists’ status.
• 54:15–55:06: Enes’ resolve to remain and report until the conflict ends or recognition of Gazans’ humanity is achieved.

Conclusion

Through powerful narratives, personal testimonies, and historical context, this episode shows how frontline journalists bring the realities of war to the wider world, often at great personal risk. It examines how the stories that reach us are shaped by danger, politics, propaganda, technology, and structural biases—challenging listeners to consider what is lost when those voices are silenced and the stakes for journalists like Enes Baba bearing witness amid catastrophe.