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CNN Sunday Morning
A Look at Women on Front Lines
Aired March 16, 2003 - 09:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Most people know Edward R. Murrow, of course, and his reputation as the first great war correspondent. There have been many. But have you heard of Edith Lederer? CNN's Whitney Casey has her story, and a look at women on the front lines.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The end of the Vietnam War.
EDITH LEDERER, AP BUREAU CHIEF, U.N.: Here I am on the North Vietnamese side interviewing some North Vietnamese prisoners.
CASEY: Where Edith Lederer started her career.
LEDERER: Women were still really a novelty.
CASEY: And a female journalist, a curiosity.
LEDERER: We were journalists first. We wanted to be where the big stories were. We wanted to be able to write that first page of history.
CASEY: Decades before Edith, war history had already been chronicled by women like Martha Gelhorn, Ernest Hemingway's wife. World War II had 127 accredited women war correspondents, but by the time of the war in Vietnam, the number of women journalists had more than doubled.
LEDERER: I was a real adventurer.
CASEY (on camera): Many of these women that came after you say that they can walk now, because you had to run.
LEDERER: This really was the beginning of a sea change.
CASEY (voice-over): While females continue to cover conflicts, it wasn't until the 1991 Gulf War that they began to really run the show.
LEDERER: The "Washington Post" bureau chief was a woman. The "Los Angeles Times" bureau chief was a woman. Christiane Amanpour really became, I think, a star.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's another launch. In the Gulf War, it was me, and my camera woman, and sound woman. We were an all-woman team. And I remember that that propelled us to one of the front lines way ahead of all the men, because the guys, the officials in charge wanted, I don't know, either to impress us, or they thought maybe we wouldn't be able to make much of a story.
CASEY: For CBS news correspondent Martha Teichner.
MARTHA TEICHNER, CORRESPONDENT, CBS: By just turning around, I can count more than 40 oil fires on the horizon.
CASEY: War became an addiction.
TEICHNER: The exhilaration of it, and the kind of satisfaction that's more like a high, really makes it hard to say no.
CASEY: Martha's overseas stint began in Lebanon.
TEICHNER: It was the first time a CBS woman correspondent had been seen in Beirut. We finally get up to the gun emplacements after crawling on our stomachs and climbing through all kinds of things and it's raining and we get fabulous story.
CASEY: The feedback from her bosses?
TEICHNER: The president of CBS news said, she didn't comb her hair.
From the looks of the wreckage, the Iraqis were driving straight toward their attackers.
CASEY: The end of the Gulf War.
TEICHNER: I collected this because I wanted to be reminded what the war was really about.
CASEY: And all of these women believe they've gotten much more than just a story out of their experience.
Whitney Casey, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 16, 2003 - 09:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Most people know Edward R. Murrow, of course, and his reputation as the first great war correspondent. There have been many. But have you heard of Edith Lederer? CNN's Whitney Casey has her story, and a look at women on the front lines.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The end of the Vietnam War.
EDITH LEDERER, AP BUREAU CHIEF, U.N.: Here I am on the North Vietnamese side interviewing some North Vietnamese prisoners.
CASEY: Where Edith Lederer started her career.
LEDERER: Women were still really a novelty.
CASEY: And a female journalist, a curiosity.
LEDERER: We were journalists first. We wanted to be where the big stories were. We wanted to be able to write that first page of history.
CASEY: Decades before Edith, war history had already been chronicled by women like Martha Gelhorn, Ernest Hemingway's wife. World War II had 127 accredited women war correspondents, but by the time of the war in Vietnam, the number of women journalists had more than doubled.
LEDERER: I was a real adventurer.
CASEY (on camera): Many of these women that came after you say that they can walk now, because you had to run.
LEDERER: This really was the beginning of a sea change.
CASEY (voice-over): While females continue to cover conflicts, it wasn't until the 1991 Gulf War that they began to really run the show.
LEDERER: The "Washington Post" bureau chief was a woman. The "Los Angeles Times" bureau chief was a woman. Christiane Amanpour really became, I think, a star.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's another launch. In the Gulf War, it was me, and my camera woman, and sound woman. We were an all-woman team. And I remember that that propelled us to one of the front lines way ahead of all the men, because the guys, the officials in charge wanted, I don't know, either to impress us, or they thought maybe we wouldn't be able to make much of a story.
CASEY: For CBS news correspondent Martha Teichner.
MARTHA TEICHNER, CORRESPONDENT, CBS: By just turning around, I can count more than 40 oil fires on the horizon.
CASEY: War became an addiction.
TEICHNER: The exhilaration of it, and the kind of satisfaction that's more like a high, really makes it hard to say no.
CASEY: Martha's overseas stint began in Lebanon.
TEICHNER: It was the first time a CBS woman correspondent had been seen in Beirut. We finally get up to the gun emplacements after crawling on our stomachs and climbing through all kinds of things and it's raining and we get fabulous story.
CASEY: The feedback from her bosses?
TEICHNER: The president of CBS news said, she didn't comb her hair.
From the looks of the wreckage, the Iraqis were driving straight toward their attackers.
CASEY: The end of the Gulf War.
TEICHNER: I collected this because I wanted to be reminded what the war was really about.
CASEY: And all of these women believe they've gotten much more than just a story out of their experience.
Whitney Casey, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
