Two area reporters – both members of the Triangle Association of Black Journalists – know what it’s like to be caught in a middle of war.

Gilbert Baez of WTVD/ABC-11 and Ken Smith of WRAL/Channel 5, a CBS affiliate, told an audience of about 25 students and faculty about their experience as embedded reporters in the war with Iraq.

The Sept. 29 panel was held at the New School of Education Auditorium.

“Between March 20 and April 9, the United States did something that had never been done before,” said Cash Michaels, moderator of the program and editor of The Carolinian. “We embedded reporters with our forces as they went forward to Baghdad. We were able to see what was happening as it was happening.”

Baez and Smith discussed their experiences after showing video clips of news stories they filed while in Iraq. The two said that they worked 18-hour days in temperatures up to 135 degrees. Both said they accepted the danger and long hours as part of the job.

Baez said he once found himself in the middle of a sandstorm, trying not to let his clothes get blown away. Smith said he was forced to wear a gas mask after a missile hit a building, causing a chemical explosion.

Baez stayed in Iraq for about six weeks while Smith was in Kuwait for about a month.

They went wherever the soldiers went, and were constantly looking for stories to report. Both said that their reports were not censored.

“At no time did anyone come up to me and say I couldn’t report a story,” Smith said.

Baez went to Iraq after major war operations ended.

“It was actually more dangerous after the war than it during it,” said Baez. “While the war is going on, you expect bullets to fly over your head. After the war, a little kid can come up to you saying he loves America and then all of a sudden pull a chord and blow you up.”

Baez said the embedded experience did not bias their reporting.

However, being embedded with the soldiers made for certain limitations.

Smith said that getting the big picture as it was happening was impossible.

“I didn’t even know that Baghdad had been bombed until I went back to the newsroom at the end of the day. I wasn’t in Baghdad, so I missed that,” he said.

Several audience members were more skeptical about the news stories that came from embedded reporters. One audience member asked the reporters if they had spoken to Iraqi civilians. They answered that they hadn’t.

“As an embedded journalist, it is only possible to report on what is happening right in front of you,” Baez said.

Brett Chambers, associate director of continuing education, organized the panel.