Part 1. Situation Definition:
This past Wednesday Penn State students had the pleasure of getting to hear an excerpted from the former CBS New correspondent Kimberly Dozier. Dozier read a piece from her book Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Survive, and Get Back to the Fight. She told all attendees in the Foster-Foreman Conference of Distinguished Writers about her journey as she covered the war in Iraq, until she was wounded in a car bombing that killed two of her colleagues. She opened her heart to the audience as she spoke of the attack and her recovery process. She talks about her career before the tragedy and how she was able to continue on with her career in the years that followed. We come to know Dozier through out her talk, but really learn more about her during the question and answer portion of the lecture, where she tells us the process of her recovery and what it is like in the real world of journalism.
Part 2. Analysis:
Kimberly Dozier is an extraordinary journalist. Not only for her work, but also for her strength though out her recovery process. When the car bomb went off she was left with black flecks of shrapnel floating under her skin and a countless amount of other complications. She states that the hardest part about her recovery was learning to walk about and proving to others that she wasn’t a PTSD ticking time bomb. Besides the physical pain she felt, she also suffered from survivor’s guilt that she said, was the hardest thing that she had to over come.
Dozier told the audience that compared to the times of the Vietnam War, they had less freedom then reports did back then because of the presents of Al-Qaeda. Al- Qaeda terrorist are known for capturing American reporters and because of this, reporters have to take precautionary measures. The only way to safely access a story was to go out with US troops. The down side to this is you only get the American perspective on the story, which can be detrimental because you don’t want to be biased. The other issue that arises is that troops thought reporters were out to get them and reporters thought that the government was hiding stuff from us. She also addresses that it is much harder for the government to keep government knowledge from the public because of social media platforms that we have today. With all the risk that comes from being an international journalist Dozier says, that you must always be careful when assessing risk. Not only for your self, but for your whole team. It really has to be worth it to get on air if you are putting your self in a risky situation.
Part 3. Conclusion:
Kimberly Dozier gave the audience a lot of valuable information for aspiring journalist to think about. She expressed that we need to become pros in every aspect of the field while in school before going out into the real world. Originally all she wanted to do was be a journalist and strictly write, but her career took her on a completely different path. She also left us by saying,, do not say to someone serving in the military “Thank you for your service” this is actually a pet peeve of hers. She says it’s like saying, “have a nice day” and not actually engaging in conversation. She left the audience encouraging us to ask deeper questions and keep the conversation going. She says, “you’ll be having a conversation with a truly incredible individual.”