The final member of the NBC News production team that had been kidnapped in Syria has escaped the country, NBC News says. In the firefight that resulted in NBC News correspondent Richard Engel and his team being freed, technician Ian Rivers was separated from his colleagues. His whereabouts were not known until today, and he has since crossed the border into Turkey where he will receive a medical evaluation.

NBC News president Steve Capus released his first statement on the incident:

“Now that Ian Rivers has been reunited with Richard Engel’s entire production team, all of us at NBC News can breathe a huge sigh of relief and express our deep appreciation to all who helped secure their freedom. At the same time, our thoughts and concerns are with those who remain missing inside Syria and we hope for their swift and safe release.”

Engel and two of his colleagues appeared on “Today,” yesterday morning.

Jon Lee Anderson writes in The New Yorker about the particular risks of reporting in Syria, a country with deep religious rifts, and without a stable security apparatus.

It is a fascinating look into the risks of reporting–or even simply working in–a country at war with itself.

“In a civil war that has cost the lives thus far of at least forty thousand Syrians, hatred and suspicions are rife, and the unique ethnic and sectarian alchemy that made Syria such a distinctive place for centuries has come asunder. As the country’s social structure unravels, so too have its traditional relationships. As important as it is for reporters to go there, as Engel bravely did, to witness these realities, it becomes highly dangerous for reporters to move around under such circumstances. Reliable intermediaries help, and sometimes prior approval is necessary. In a fluid battlefield situation, however, deals can be broken, and there is also the active criminal element, such as the former drug and contraband smugglers who have long flourished along Syria’s borders.”

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel is safe, after being kidnapped in Syria late last week and released overnight. Unfortunately, kidnappings, injuries and death are part of the job of the foreign correspondent and their crew. With stories out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and Libya in the last few years, just about every news outlet has had at least a handful of staffers affected by violence or misfortune.

In April, 2003, NBC News correspondent David Bloom died in Iraq due to a blood clot.

In June, 2003, NBC News Soundman Jeremy Little was mortally wounded in a grenade attack in Iraq. He was treated in Landstuhl, Germany but succumbed a few days later to a post-operative infection.

In January, 2006, ABC anchor Bob Woodruff and camera operator Doug Vogt were badly injured in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded next to the vehicle they were traveling in.

In May, 2006 CBS camera operator Paul Douglas and sound technician James Brolan were killed in Iraq when the U.S. Army unit they were embedded with came under attack. CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier was seriously wounded in the attack and survived.

In August, 2006 Fox News Channel correspondent Steve Centanni and camera operator Olaf Wiig were kidnapped while reporting in Gaza. Centanni’s family would make a televised plea for their safe return, and they were eventually freed. Wiig would see another incident in Egypt in 2011 (see below).

In May, 2007 ABC News camera operator Alaa Uldeen Aziz and sound technician Saif Laith Yousuf were killed in Iraq when the car they were traveling in was ambushed.

In August, 2008 Fox News camera operator Chris Jackson was injured in Afghanistan while traveling with Oliver North.

In August, 2009 CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick was injured in Afghanistan when the vehicle she was traveling in was hit by an IED.

February 2011 saw a number of incidents, particularly in Egypt:
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NBC’s chief competitors, including ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox News all refrained from discussing Richard Engel‘s disappearance in Syria at the request of NBC.

While Engel’s disappearance may have been newsworthy, most major news organizations have had similar situations happen to their correspondents, and almost certainly would make the same request of NBC. In 2009, The New York Times revealed that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had escaped after months of being imprisoned by the Taliban. Reporters who learned of Rohde’s kidnapping weighed the pros and cons of publishing the story, and it ultimately remained secret.

Engel hinted at the effort to withold information about his kidnapping during his “Today,” appearance, saying:

NBC was fantastic at informing our families, keeping people up to date and keeping the story quiet. While obviously we are very happy, there are still hostages, there are still people who don’t have their freedom inside Syria, and we wish them well.

With NBC’s Richard Engel safe, attention is once again being focused on Syria, which continues to prove itself one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in recent memory. There are still a number of journalists missing in the country, including freelance journalist Austin Tice.

28 journalists have been killed in the country since the uprising began according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, including Japanese TV reporter Mika Yamamoto, French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, French war photographer Rémi Ochlik and Sunday Times war reporter Marie Colvin, who was killed just hours after appearing on CNN. Most of the journalists killed were locals reporting on their own country.

In an interview with TVNewser in 2008, Engel talked about being an international correspondent. There is an appeal that sucks certain people in, towards the danger, and away from the relative safety of home.

“Something about international reporting is still very raw. You are covering a developing story and it’s like almost being a hunter-gatherer…and there is something about that I find very worthwhile. And I love doing it…I’ve been living [abroad] for 12 years. By now, living overseas is home to me.”

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, along with his production team, have been freed after being held captive in Syria. NBC lost communication with the team late last week, and had no contact with Engel or his captors until he had been freed.

The team, comprised of Engel, producer Ghazi Balkiz, camera operator John Kooistra, and freelance journalist Aziz Akyavas had been driving in Syria in a rebel-controlled area, with some of the Syrian rebels. A group of gunmen stormed their vehicle, dragged them from their car, executed one of the rebels, and held them hostage, moving them from safehouse to safehouse. Along the way, they conducted psychological warfare on Engel and his crew, including mock executions.

They were freed when the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, started a gunfight with the rebels, and Engel and his team crawled from the vehicle after two of their captors had been killed. The rebels took Engel and his team to safety, and escorted them to the Turkish border.

It was a harrowing tale, which Engel recounted this morning:

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CNN foreign correspondent Arwa Damon is profiled by Vogue. Damon, who famously discovered Ambassador Stevens’ journal in the burned-out ruins of the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, really opens up to author Heidi Mitchell.

The daughter of an American father and a Syrian mother, Damon grew up speaking both English and Arabic. Hr parents settled in Beirut, Lebanon, where Damon also rents an apartment.

“In college, I had a lot of friends who didn’t know anything about the Middle East, who had never met anyone from there,” she explains. “And when 9/11 happened, I saw this East-West divide become even greater, and I got this idea in my head that I was going to be a bridge, to help create cross-cultural understanding through journalism.” Her friends thought she was off her rocker. “They said I should start in a small town, build my way up in the industry. I said no, I’m going to Iraq.”

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CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was in Portugal last week shooting a story for CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” and he ended up being temporarily blinded for 36 hours.

He recounts the harrowing experience on his daytime talk show “Anderson Live.” In a nutshell, he was shooting out at sea, and sunlight reflecting off of the water burned his retina:

“I wake up in the middle of the night and it feels like my eyes are on fire, my eyeballs and I think oh maybe I have sand in my eyes or something. I douse my eyes with water. Anyway, it turns out I have sunburned my eyeballs and I go blind. I went blind for 36 hours.”

He took the picture above after visiting the doctor.

Video after the jump.
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Since fighting began in Syria, 26 journalists have been killed in the region. American Journalism Review talks to some of the reporters who have snuck into the country to report on the violence, including CBS News’ Clarissa Ward, who has visited Syria six times since she joined CBS:

On one occasion, the journalists followed Abu Ibrahim and his younger brother Azzu into battle. A video clip aired on CBS shows Ibrahim struggling to drag the limp body of a fallen comrade to safety under heavy gunfire. The rebels had no radio communications and Ibrahim “could not have known that on the other side of the road his brother Azzu also had been shot,” Ward reported.

Ward was in the room when women in the family learned of Azzu’s death and collapsed in grief. His body, along with others killed in the fight, was placed in a hall below the house. At breakfast the next day, Ward sat silently, watching as Ibrahim picked up a piece of traditional flatbread. “He was chewing and chewing, but he couldn’t swallow. Suddenly, he just started to sob. I cried with him,” she recalls. Later, the elder brother led the funeral procession. Read more

On last night’s “Nightline,” the producers of the new movie Zero Dark Thirty Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal were interviewed by Martha Raddatz. The film is a fictionalization of the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. Among the revelations: the producers used footage from an ABC News report to reconstruct a full-size version of Bin Laden’s compound in exacting detail.

Kathryn Bigelow: That’s the compound we built. 

Raddatz: The floor, the tile, the carpet. Mark said you took that…

Bigelow: From your footage

Raddatz: From the original ABC video

Bigelow: Yes.  Yes. The bed all of that. The rug. Everything we could find from that video we replicated. 

Raddatz: So you froze that ABC video and …

Bigelow: Yeah frame after frame after frame and found tile that was identical to that.  And built the house with everyconceivable piece of information that we could find we replicated. 

WATCH:

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