ALTON - Peabody-Award-winning investigative war correspondent and reporter Robert Riggs recently gave personal insights into his experience reporting from the front lines of various armed conflicts over the years, including an investigative report on Hamas far before the current conflict in Israel.
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Riggs comes from a long line of military service - his father, grandfather, and uncles all served in World War II. He also graduated from Texas A&M, which he said is “one of the oldest military schools in the country.” After graduation, he began his Congressional career as a staffer on a defense committee before becoming a war correspondent for the media.
During his time as a correspondent, Riggs covered the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses, the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, and several armed conflicts over the years, including the Contra War in Nicaragua and Gulf War I. In 2003, he was offered to join a CBS station group whose material would be seen around the country - Riggs accepted on the condition he would go on-scene to cover the war in Iraq.
When that experience was over, Riggs and his producer focused in on the topic of terrorism - specifically, a group showing back up in the news today.
“I was embedded with the unit, but after it, my producer and I decided, ‘Look, we really want to dig into terrorism,’” Riggs said. “Before the war, I had done some terrorism reporting with Osama Bin Laden and all that back in like 1998, and so we really dug in, we started a very, very popular blog about it … the target of our investigation was Hamas.”
While Riggs said he saw parallels between the current situation with Hamas and his coverage of their motivations back then, he said it ultimately does not surprise him. He added that journalists reporting on the front lines have more of a target on their back than they used to.
“Especially after 9/11, nothing surprises me anymore - nothing after that,” he said. “There was a time you felt like journalists were off-limits - we got a pass or they were neutral - but I began to see even in the Gulf War, that wasn’t the case anymore. If you were an American, you were a target.”
Riggs noted examples of other journalists being attacked or kidnapped while covering armed conflicts, noting a close call he experienced himself.
“I had a close experience to my crew and I getting shot or executed when we were in Honduras covering the Contras, and it was from that moment on, I said ‘I will never do this unless I’m with the United States military’ … I had a close call that taught me a lesson,” he said.
“Even with the unit I was with in Iraq, we suffered the first casualties, we got hit by friendly fire from an F-16 which rang my bell, so I still have a few issues today, 20 years later from it.”
All reporters embedded within a military unit agreed to certain conditions, including not being armed. There were also certain things he agreed not to report on, including his exact location (for safety due to live coverage) and equipment malfunctions (to avoid giving the enemy an advantage).
While reporting from the field meant close calls with danger, it also allowed Riggs to have a closer understanding of the soldiers in the unit he was embedded in.
“There are certain personalities that thrive on this. There is an adrenaline rush. It’s the best of times and the worst of times if you’re embedded,” Riggs said of being an on-scene war correspondent. “When you’re embedded, you get to know the soldiers in the unit - I mean, you know them as people - it’s not just like you’re covering a car wreck and it’s some anonymous person killed on the side of the road, and that hits you hard.”
The full interview featuring even more stories and information from Riggs is available at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.
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