Text size:

Bomb injures anchor

Roadside blast seriously wounds Woodruff, of ABC’s "World News Tonight," and cameraman as pair rides with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad

BY VERNE GAY | STAFF WRITER

January 30, 2006

ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured yesterday by a roadside bomb in Iraq but were in stable condition last night after surgery, ABC News said.

"We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical," said ABC News president David Westin. He said the military was evacuating the men to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where they should arrive this morning.

Woodruff, 44, became co-anchor of "World News Tonight" earlier this month, and Vogt, 46, is a highly regarded network news cameraman. The two were embedded with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division in the town of Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, when they decided to ride in an Iraqi mechanized vehicle at the head of the coalition convoy.

Both were standing in the vehicle's hatch when an improvised bomb on the road exploded, according to ABC News. They were wearing body armor and helmets, but ABC said they sustained "serious" head injuries caused by shrapnel. It said Woodruff had other upper-body injuries and that an Iraqi soldier was also wounded.

The men were flown to a U.S. military hospital in Balad for surgery, ABC News' Martha Raddatz said. An ABC producer said on "World News Tonight" that she spoke to both before they left.

About half last night's broadcast focused on the attack, including the dangers of roadside bombs. They are the top cause of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq, the Defense Department says.

Woodruff's assignment in Iraq reflects a potentially revolutionary arrangement at ABC News. Under the new setup, either Woodruff or his co-anchor, Elizabeth Vargas, covers a developing story in the field while the other anchors from New York. (In one instance, the West Virginia mine tragedy, both reported from the field at the same time).

Woodruff has had recent assignments in particularly difficult territory, including North Korea, Iran and Israel. He arrived in Iraq Friday and was staying through tomorrow.

Vogt has previously been in a convoy hit by a bomb but was not hurt, ABC said.

"Even under the best circumstances, it's a very dangerous environment," CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said in an interview. "Even if you're flying in a Blackhawk or a Bradley fighting vehicle or a Humvee and surrounded by a lot of security, it's still a very dangerous situation, and that's under the best American protection."

But any serious journalist needs to be in Iraq at some point, said CBS News correspondent Lara Logan, who was thrown 12 feet by an attack in Afghanistan in 2003 but was not badly hurt.

"If you really want to cover the story, if you believe in what you're doing, you have absolutely no choice," Logan told The Associated Press. "If you want to be safe, don't go to Iraq."

The incident yesterday highlights the changing role of television anchors as more and more people get their news online, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a Washington-based watchdog group.

If newscasts move online, the role of the anchor is going to be more that of a lead reporter, Rosenstiel said. That's because online, "the user is going to be 'the anchor person' who decides" when and what he watches.

"And rather than just looking to the anchor to be the connective thread between the story, the anchors [like Woodruff] will be out there in the field covering the story and putting a signature more on the reporting."

Rosenstiel adds, however, that in such cases "they may need more security and bigger crews. You probably want them not to be lone wolves but the center of reporting teams."

Since the U.S.-led invasion, 37 journalists have been abducted in Iraq and 61 have been killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

An Iraqi cameraman for Baghdad TV was killed Thursday covering clashes in Ramadi, witnesses said. The fate of Christian Science Monitor freelancer Jill Carroll is still not known after her abduction Jan. 7.

Woodruff was close friends with David Bloom of NBC News, who died of a pulmonary embolism at 39 while covering the opening days of the war in April 2003. Woodruff left his reporting assignment to take Bloom's remains home for burial. Woodruff's wife and Bloom's widow are particularly close friends.

Woodruff and Vargas were the primary substitute anchors on "World News Tonight" after Peter Jennings left the air in April with lung cancer. Jennings died in August, and they were named co-anchors last month.

This story was supplemented with wire service reports.