I dont understand whats the vest supposed to do
Arent they kinda useless in the event noones watching the vest or reading it?
Also are there consequences if they got shot or is it just a stupid vest i dont really understand !
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The press have access to people and places that many people wouldn’t have. A local citizen might not be allowed to approach a military checkpoint, for example. Having a clearly identifiable vest means that friendly forces may not mistake you and your crew as a militant group carrying a rocket launcher.
In conflict, there are different rules for combatants and non-combatants. Non-combatants (including aid workers, medical staff) are not meant to be targeted. Journalists are often embedded in military units for reporting purposes but they are civilians. They often do wear protective gear such as helmets and vests because shrapnel doesn’t care who you are, but if they don’t clearly identify that they are civilians, they may be purposefully targeted.
While the rules of war are often ignored, the repercussions of intentionally targeting civilians carries social and political fallout. It is a war crime to kill civilians, so if the perpetrators are captured, they may face justice through international courts.
To let people know they are a reporter.
When you go into a active warzone or a place with civil unrest, the vest basically tells the proper people that “you are not with these people and are just reporting the event”
So when the despot start having their military gunning people down the street, reporters from other nation don’t get gunned down with the regular folks.
The consequence is literally diplomatic, like “you shot my citizen”, and depending on the strength of the nation in question, is a mess most people don’t want to get into.
Deliberately targeting reporters in a war zone is a war crime and individuals can be put on trial at a later date, so reporters wear distinctive blue bullet resistant vests so that any soldier should know not to shoot reporters.
These are bullet proof vests in war zones. You’ll see them wearing helmets as well. Even in countries where owning such is illegal (UK) they are permitted to sell to accredited journalists. Obviously this serves the dual purpose of identifying them as press and also for protection.
Usually they are blue in colour to stand out and further confirm they are non combatants. Most wars have respected this but certain countries have history of ‘accidentally’ killing journalists and film crews which is why even private cars are fully identified as ‘Press’ and ‘TV’ too.
As others have said it’s a war crime to misidentify yourself as a journalist or to target a journalist. They do not HAVE to obey orders of armies or police to leave an area whilst reporting but this is often ignored with members of the press commonly being arrested/detained etc for many hours before being released with apologies. This happens across the world including 1st World like UK and US.
However there are, in foreign conflicts, some people who are putting themselves across as journalists who are not there solely for that purpose. This happens from all countries and is just one reason that journalists are then targeted by governments.
Hope this helps..
Wearing armor is a good idea when you’re in a war zone. Many weapons such as artillery, rockets, grenades, etc aren’t very discriminate and could easily kill you whether or not anybody intended to hit you in particular.
If you wear normal-looking armor, then you tend to look like just another soldier. You could easily be targeted by either side. In battle, people tend to be scared and panicky, there isn’t always time to identify someone for certain, you could be presumed to be a threat and shot at just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Friendly fire” does happen more often than anyone wants to admit.
So it’s generally good to wear armor that’s very obviously Press armor, like different colors and everything. You’re generally not supposed to shoot at reporters on purpose, but not every side respects the rules all the time, and sometimes mistakes happen. Probably most of the time your odds of coming through it without major injuries are still higher than wearing unmarked or no armor, though there are no certainties.
Folks have explained this better than I can, but I also wanted to throw a book recommendation out there that I enjoyed about war correspondents and their evolution over the years: The First Casualty by Phillip Knightley.
Some things in war are very indiscriminate. Some types of bombs are dumb bombs, they are deployed simply hoping they will kill the enemy. Since reporters are in areas where these kinds of weapons might be deployed they might wear protective gear to protect against shrapnel produced by these devices. There are a lot of bullets being fired, stray bullets might hit them also, further necessitating protective gear.
This protective gear might make it look like they are a combatant which might encourage a combatant to attack them. So they wear clothing that clearly identified them as the press. The press are civilians and thus not lawful objects of attack, attacking them on purpose would be a prima facie war crime which ironically will probably be reported on.
There are laws in war. I’m not going to wade into the debate around how well these laws are respected or enforced, but needless to say, there *are* laws, and armed forces are expected to respect them.
Reporters are non-combatants, and they’re protected by the law to a certain extent. Similar protections apply to civilians and medics. Armed forces are typically not allowed to attack these protected groups.
For medics and reporters, identifying themselves clearly is a requirement for them to claim such protections. This can be particularly important when they are often not citizens of the country they’re operating in. A foreigner walking around a warzone, speaking a different language and hanging out with various armed groups can easily be percieved as a spy or other irregular combatant.
Blue body armour is the standard for the UN, that is to say a non combatant. Then people started shooting at the UN so some journalists started adding “TV” in white tape. Then they realised that wasn’t pretty enough for TV so they got PRESS badges. The PRESS badge is to identify up close, the blue is an attempt to identify as a non combatant
Picture it like this: you are waging war against some nation you *know* you can beat. Then you accidentally kill someone from a much stronger nation, and that nation joins the war because you killed one of them.
Press vests try to prevent such “accidents”.
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