New York, May 29, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the deaths today of CBS News cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan, killed when a car bomb exploded while they were on patrol in Baghdad with Iraqi and American soldiers. Correspondent Kimberly Dozier, the third member of the CBS crew, was seriously injured and underwent surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad.
The CBS journalists, embedded with the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, were reporting from outside their humvee and were believed to have been wearing protective gear when a car packed with explosives detonated, CBS said in a statement. An Iraqi contractor and an American soldier were killed, and six soldiers were injured, according to news reports.
“The news profession has lost nearly 100 people in this devastating war—71 journalists and 26 support staffers,” said Ann Cooper, CPJ’s executive director. “Dozens more have been injured or kidnapped in one of the most dangerous conflicts that journalists have ever covered. Our sympathies go out to the families of all those killed and injured today, including Paul Douglas and James Brolan; our thoughts are with correspondent Kimberly Dozier, who was seriously injured.”
Douglas, 48, based in London, had worked for CBS News in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Rwanda and Bosnia since the early 1990s, CBS said. Brolan, 42, also based in London, was a freelancer who worked with CBS News in Baghdad and Afghanistan over the past year, according to the network. Dozier, 39, has been a CBS correspondent in Iraq for three years.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 33 people were killed in a series of bomb attacks that made the day one of the most violent in some time, The Associated Press reported. In one deadly attack, a bomb planted in a bus station killed 11 people and wounded 16 in the town of Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, The New York Times reported.
More than three-quarters of journalists killed in the conflict have been Iraqis, but foreign journalists have also been killed or injured on duty, CPJ research shows. In January, ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt suffered serious injuries when a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi military vehicle carrying them north of the capital.