By ALIA CONLEY
J Alumni News staff
Courtesy photo, Todd Baer
After the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, in November 2008, journalist Todd Baer searched for the untold story. He found out that a fisherman from Gujarat, India, was one of the first people killed. And he told that man’s story.
“That fisherman’s life is just as valuable as a wealthy businessman who was shot at the Taj Mahal Hotel,” Baer said. “That’s what journalism is about. Journalism is all about giving a voice to the people who can’t get a voice.”
Baer has traveled all over the world, finding people whose stories need to be told. He’s reported in Gaza, Lebanon, Kenya, Pakistan, Haiti and Iran, covering conflicts, wars, bombings and presidential assassinations. Baer has followed big international stories from country to country, no matter how dangerous.
In April, the 1997 J school grad visited Lincoln when the journalism college gave him the 2010 Will and Susan Norton Award for International Journalism. Baer was the featured speaker at the J Days honors convocation.
Growing up caring
Baer grew up in New York City, part of a Lebanese American family. From the time he was a child, he was a news junkie, his mother, Judy Baer, remembers:
“While other children his age were playing video games and listening to rock music, Todd was watching the evening news with Walter Cronkite and listening to a 24-hour news radio station.”
Judy Baer remembers when Anwar Sadat was assassinated in October 1981 and Todd woke his parents to tell them the breaking news.
As a teenager, Todd idolized Peter Jennings, who inspired his passion for international news, Judy Baer said.
Although his life-long dream has been to be an international reporter, Baer’s first job was as a desk assistant in New York with ABC News. While he was there, ABC sent Baer, who had been a wrestler at UNL, to Iran to cover a wrestling competition. It was the first athletic exchange between the U.S. and Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution — and Baer’s first opportunity to report internationally.
When he left ABC, he worked as a reporter for local news stations in Austin, Texas, Hartford, Conn., and Minneapolis, Minn.
Baer received the Will and Susan Norton Award for International Journalism at the college's Honors Convocation April 8
In 2007, his contract with KSTP-TV in Minneapolis was about to expire, and Baer had two choices: to accept an offer to renew his contract or take an opportunity to help start a television network in Pakistan.
“I took the biggest risk of my life. I traded in a three-year contract for a guarantee of 10 weeks of work in arguably the most dangerous city in the world, Karachi, Pakistan,” Baer said. “I was quite nervous, but I knew that this was a hot place, and if you’re going to be a foreign correspondent you have to be in the hot places.”
After training the staff at GEO-TV in Pakistan and helping to launch TV news networks — in India and in Nairobi, Kenya — Baer freelanced for six months for CNN and ABC News, covering the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the suicide bombing outside the High Court in Lahore, Pakistan. He also was the first American reporter to interview the family of U.S. President Barack Obama in Kogelo, Kenya.
In 2008, Baer joined Al Jazeera English, the 24-hour English-language news channel based in Doha, Qatar. He worked primarily in the New Delhi bureau and later in Beirut, Lebanon.
Finding the important, interesting stories
Rick Alloway, a broadcasting professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, remembers Baer as a student andh ow he would stop by frequently to talk about journalism opportunities. Since he graduated, Baer has sent Alloway some of his work online, and Alloway said he has been impressed.
“Todd is willing to go wherever the big story is,” Alloway said. “There are certainly safer places to go, but Todd knows that’s where the interesting stories are. Some of the most important stories to tell are from the most dangerous places in the world, and Todd goes to seek those.”
To learn tips for survival when reporting, Al Jazeera sent Baer to a one-week training course conducted by former British military soldiers in London. He learned basic first aid, he learned how to spot land mines and he learned that he should often wear a Kevlar bulletproof vest.
“A lot of people don’t realize that when you go into a war zone, it is extremely serious,” Baer said. “The reality hits you when your boss asks you for your blood type and an emergency phone number. There’s a chance you’re going to be killed, and that’s the reality that we deal with.”
Baer said his team takes many precautions and talks about security constantly. When reporting, Baer can take two approaches: high profile with armed security and cars or a low profile without protection. Baer often takes a low-profile approach in order to blend in and report the story fairly. He rarely has been embedded with a military unit.
Baer said journalists today are targets of terrorists or militant groups. Because many reporters have been killed or injured, news companies are reluctant to send people into a conflict zone. He appreciates Al Jazeera’s commitment to “fearless journalism,” and while the news organization knows that reporting is risky, it also knows the stories need to be told.
Judy Baer knows her son’s work takes him to some “scary places,” but she understands the motivation.
“My feelings can be summed up in two words: fear and happiness. Fear of his working in challenging places balanced with happiness that Todd is doing what he loves most.”
Reporting those stories is his way of helping the people he reports on, Baer said.
“My contribution is that I can tell this story,” he said. “If I do my job, other people will find out about it.”
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