10 Plus ... 2: Ode To Joyce

(CBS)

Randall Joyce generated some of the most feedback yet for our 10 Plus 1 feature. So this week, we're changing the rules so the format includes 10 of our questions and TWO of yours. If that's not fair, we don't know what is. So, be sure to check out the final two questions that encompass the concerns that many of you posed to Joyce about how the media covers the war in Iraq and what he thinks about the blogosphere.

So, what do you do for a living?

I'm a producer in the CBS News London Bureau. In television news, the producer is the person behind the scenes organizing coverage of the story. The limits of the job are fluid. You may come up with the idea for a story and research it, organize the logistics, do some of the camera work, work on the script with the reporter, then work with the videotape editor and finally, make sure that it gets on a satellite feed to New York in time for the broadcast. On some assignments like the battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, a big part of the job is knowing where the story is and figuring out a way to get there and survive. At CBS News we're fortunate to have experienced people who all have ideas and aren't shy about sharing them. The reporter, the cameraman, the soundman and the producer work as a team. If you're lucky, you have a strong group and then listening and getting out of people's way while they do their jobs are the most important skills you could have.

I think there are big parts of the world that don't get the coverage they merit because of the way news gets prioritised in the limited amount of time that we have. China is a huge economic and military rival that our viewers don't hear enough about. I'd also like to see more stories from Africa and Latin America.

There are some incidents that are just too bizarre to find their way into your story. I was doing a piece on accused Serbian war criminals living openly in a Bosnian town called Foca after the war. The NATO forces that controlled the area had so far made no effort to arrest them. I had a hidden camera and working with a translator wandered through the town looking for one war criminal in particular; Janko Janjic also known as Tuta. We eventually found him and taped him bragging about how many people he had killed and how he had slit their throats and dug their eyes out. He was adamant that NATO would never take him alive and lifted up his vest to show me two hand grenades and a pistol. The strange twist to the story was something we learned from a source close to the local police. It seems Tuta lived with his mother and she had just looked out the window of her apartment and seen a NATO truck roll by (a complete coincidence) when we knocked on the door. She was convinced we were NATO soldiers come to arrest her son and fainted dead away. We headed off to the café where we did find Tuta and she finally came to and called the police to raise the alarm. Several years later German troops did come to arrest Tuta and he was good to his word, pulling out a hand grenade and blowing himself up before they could grab him.

(CBS)

I've never broken 10 fingers on assignment but I have had some pretty spectacular car trouble. During the invasion of Iraq I was part of a team embedded with the Marines of the 2nd LAR. John Roberts was the correspondent. Kirk Spitzer and I took turns filming and driving. Our engineer Patrick Starling had rigged a satellite dish and rotating satellite phone antennas on a hummer so that we could broadcast live as we rolled into Iraq. Everything Patrick created worked perfectly but a small electronic sensor on the fuel injector pump burned out and the engine stopped dead. The Marines were kind enough to tow us but every time we stopped we'd be filming, setting up the satellite dish and trying to fix the engine. John Roberts would be up to his elbows in the engine [yes, that's him in the picture] while I talked on the phone with mechanics from Australia to Texas. If any time was left over, we would dig holes to sleep in, usually finishing at the exact moment the column was ready to roll again. I don't want to single out any one colleague but that gives you an idea of how important it is to work with people you can count on.

At this point I'm unfit for any other occupation.

The media world has changed radically in the years I've been at CBS. Part of it is the diversity of the competition; part of it is the way technology allows us to push the limits now. Today one person can hitch a ride on a chopper or drive a vehicle over a mountain range and send out television reports using a satellite phone and a laptop.

Last 3 books read: Just Enough Liebling, The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw, The Travels of Ibn Battuta.

My first memory of television news is watching the civil rights marches in the 60's.

My father was in the business so I think it's time to break the cycle of pain and suffering.

On the positive side I would have to mention Charlene Smith, a South African woman who survived a brutal rape and then went on to launch a campaign against the epidemic of sexual violence in her homeland. She successfully avoided falling into self-pity in part because she always had so much empathy for others. The best way to make her angry was to refer to her as a rape victim.

On the negative side I would have to put Tuta, the war crimes suspect mentioned in #3. He bookends with Charlene Smith as well because he and his colleagues made history by being indicted in a case based solely on rape as a war crime. He was a common criminal in jail before the war and was let out to terrorize the Muslim population of his town. Strangely his group justified its violence by defiantly clinging to victim status for the Serbs in a long line of Balkan atrocities. A tattoo on Tuta's forehead summed up his view of life. It read: "Before I was born I was dead."

We hear this all the time. At times it seems as if people are reading the same line: "Why don't you report some of the good news out of Iraq?" from talking points handed out on cue cards. (Now would be a good time to come clean, you bloggers out there. Who's giving you those cards?) The truth is that we are always happy to report good news when we find it. Last January's election is a case in point. The images of Iraqis lining up to vote for the first time in their lives and proudly holding up their ink stained fingers were beamed all around the world. Was that coverage positive enough? Even on days like that it is still our job to put events into context and point out that a vast majority of Sunnis didn't vote and that could lead to trouble down the road. Is that negative or is it just responsible journalism? In the last few days there have been some hopeful developments in the talks on revising the constitution. If that works out and the Sunnis really do start participating in Iraqi politics and backing away from the insurgency, you'll see journalists tripping over one another to report the good news. Not because of their politics but because it's news.

Here's the biggest non-revelation of all: journalists are among the most enthusiastic readers of blogs. Many bloggers make good use of the fact that they are free to follow the thread of a story or to chip away at some issue long after a regular journalist's editor would have assigned him to cover something else. If you share that blogger's obsession it makes for compelling reading and possibly a good source. I'm not going to be foolish enough to give out my seal of approval to any specific blogs. That would be ridiculously presumptuous and exactly who cares? I don't see why there is all this hype about the battle between blogs and the so-called mainstream media. It's not like we're sheep herders and cattle ranchers fighting over the range. It's not a zero sum game.