‘Hold Your Nerve’ — A Q & A with War Photojournalist Paul Conroy

Conroy says Putin’s war is “an old-fashioned land grab and attempted extermination” and the West must remain dogged in its support of Ukraine, and media can’t let it fall off the news cliff of death

On our most recent Bette Dangerous Founder’s Day, we were joined by award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker, Paul Conroy, who is currently covering his 19th war — he’s been in Ukraine since Putin first launched the full-scale invasion.

I opened the interview reading this quote from the Resistance fighter in the film Casablanca:

You might as well question why we breathe, if we stopped breathing, we die. If we stopped fighting our enemies, the world will die. 

Here is an excerpt from my Q & A with Paul:

Heidi: I wanted to start there with that quote, because I'm fighting the information war here at home. And it's tiring. And I'm always attacked for this work. And it's a struggle, but I'm not going to stop. And then we meet somebody like Paul Conroy, who has for 20 years, covered wars in war zones, the very visible wars, where the bombs are dropping — those kinds of wars. And he's not going to stop either. 

I am honored to have him as our guest today. Many of you will have heard his interview with RadPod, perhaps some of you subscribe to his substack already, thank you for that. Some of you may know of his book ‘Under the Wire’ where he documented his experiences in Syria with Marie Colvin, who died there after being targeted for her work. Paul was badly injured.

Paul, if it's not embargoed, can you give us a preview of your upcoming TED Talk and what your focus was?

Paul: It was about the power of journalism. In particularly, photojournalism — whether it still has the power to effect outcomes of war, which I obviously believe it does. We are in an age where there's so much information available — everybody has a camera in their hand 24 hours a day. And there’s a difference between taking a snap and putting it on Instagram.

The reality is, going into conflict zones, just how far you have to push. I'll use the analogy Marie used to use, like getting to the heart of any story, it’s like peeling back the layers of an onion, you just have to keep working your way through and when you got to the core of the onion, that’s your story. And so it was essentially retelling what happened in Syria and the journey into Syria. And the aftershocks and the after-effects of Marie dying and how we tell these stories. The world is awash with information now, but I still think the art of journalism and storytelling and photography still plays a big part in getting the impact out.

Heidi: Absolutely. For me, it’s particularly independents who have the training and the experience of how to how to properly do this work, but without the restraints that we're seeing in corporate media. When I was in journalism school in the ‘80s, it was the beginning of the multinationals buying up media. And we have seen now how detrimental that has been to truth during these times.

So independents, such as yourself, such as Zarina Zabrisky, are really, really important. And I'd like to say that one of our Bette Dangerous members Randolph asked me to share this with you. He wrote, ‘Could you please pass along my deep gratitude for Paul Conroy's photography — specifically the feature in Byline Supplement ‘The Angel of Donbas’…the opening photo of Katie Livingston and her assistants was, I have no words. Maybe you do to express adequately the photos clear and deep reflection of what is most sacred in humanity.’

The Angel of Donbas

I bring that up, because that is what I think of when I think of photojournalism. Also, your pictures of fathers on the front in the war in Ukraine are so incredibly powerful. That is what I think of when I think of photojournalism.

Fathers on the Front

What I don't think is photojournalism is what I call newsporn and trauma porn — brutal images populating Twitter timelines, which I believe, are designed to psychologically batter people into some kind of response, submission, despair, what have you.

Can you speak on the difference between what Randolph was writing about and being moved with those photos? Versus what I think is causing hate and division and what I believe actually is part of the information war?

Paul: Well, first thank you, Randolph. I really appreciate your comments. I spoke a little while ago about photojournalism and there's always been this ongoing debate about what you should show — should you show the raw, bloody unedited footage of photographs — and I just explained it this way: once a week, when me and Marie went out and did our job in Syria or Libya, wherever we were, we had one opportunity a week to bring home the story and the reality of war to people who were more often than not — it was the Sunday Times — setting with their breakfast and their orange juice, and croissant, and the newspaper.

Now, given that we had one chance a week — if people would open that paper and there was just an image of a decapitated baby, the first thing people would do is turn the page and not read the brilliant 2,500 words that Marie had written. And so I think in many ways, the story of the Angel of Donbas is an example of images that draw you in and open up the world that we've discovered together.

And you don't do that by shock. It’s not my intent to shock people into taking sides, which I think is what a lot of social media images is about. It's about ‘isn't this awful, which side are you on…’

You know, it's actually far more nuanced than that. We have this one opportunity a week to bring the reality and the grim reality of war. And to find the words and pictures with context… as opposed to a horrifying picture. A horrifying picture is just a horrifying picture. It's got no context, there's no depth. There's no story, there's no ‘how it happened’. There's no explanation.

I don't see it as our job to shock people. I photograph everything I see, and a lot of that gets used in war crimes tribunals, used as evidence. But when it comes to portraying or putting across a story, it's not censorship.

It's a combination of pictures and words that have to work hand in hand to tell a story in context, and I hope that's what we're getting right.

And the day that comes when it’s just posting the worst image you can take, that’s not what photojournalism is about it. It's nuanced story. It's inviting people to want to know more, you know, and not just look at a revolting picture and turning away. When people turn away, you've lost them, they're gone. They're not going to come back.

Heidi: RadPod just interviewed Monique Camarra again today. And we were talking about a counter-messaging offensive. And she was talking today about psychological disarmament, and about the importance of unity and truth.

We are in a hot psychological war. And I know when I am on the site, formerly known as Twitter, I can see the accounts where their job is just to psychologically bash people — moving them one way, moving them another way, but one thing they're doing is moving them away from unity. Trying to get people divided, to hate each other.

And at some point, people in the West have got to wake the fuck up, and realize that if we are not united, if we are going to continue to allow everything to wedge us apart, and erode support for Ukraine, erode support for democracy, while we're all fighting each other over purity tests or whatever, we're going to be looking at bleak times.

I feel like no good is coming of this continual bludgeoning of brutality. I feel like horror events are being staged to continually move people further apart from humanity, as opposed to focusing on supporting places like Ukraine.

Paul: I feel for the Ukrainians — I've been there for two years now. And I've seen their spirit, the way they fought, the way they've remained — it's one of the few countries that I've been in where what you see is what you get.

They’re really beyond genuine, and they're up against it. And they’re at a critical juncture now, with the Kremlin spewing out this propaganda stream, when the people, the world really needs to be focused on supporting Ukraine. Because it is such a massive threat — if Ukraine falls, Russia is on the doorstep of very, very volatile tiny countries — the Baltic states — their fears are genuine. So it's a bad time for the world to be taking its eyes off probably one of the biggest geopolitical events since 1945 — since the end of World War Two.

The aim of most of this propaganda is for people to lose focus — to cause people to lose focus with the vast amount of information that's being thrown out. There's no burden of proof on anyone. It's just to create dark brown water that people stop being able to see truth. People say to me, what's happened — what's real — and that’s deliberate.

Heidi: Exactly. And those who watched RadPod know that when Zarina was staying with me, she could not wait to get back to Ukraine. Because there, people know what's going on. There's no confusion, there's no murk… it's very clear cut.

And my concern is that we don't wake up in America, in the West, until the bombs are overhead. And that's why I work 24/7 to try to expose what I can from my spot here, because I want people to know what's happening before the bombs drop here as they are in Ukraine.

And can you explain to our friends who might not have watched your episode of RadPod, why you keep going back to war zones, and why you keep going back to frontlines to do this work.

Paul: I explained to my kids that we live in a pretty stable country. I'm from the UK, we have enough to eat, we're not going to wake up in the middle of the night, the doors being kicked down or 1000 kilogram bombs falling on us. But there are people in the world — in large parts of the world — who that does happen to. I have the opportunity, the choice to go out and try and give people some semblance of a voice.

I've described briefly, it was in the Balkans in ‘99. In Kosovo, I remember standing at the border, the first job I'd ever really done like that. I was filming and I noticed when people were coming out, they never spoke about the ethnic cleansing amongst themselves. It was when they got to the border, and there were a few journalists and a few photographers there, that they felt they could tell their story.

For the first time, they could tell it to someone outside of that group, they were all in the group, and they passed over them stories. And with that comes a great responsibility. If people are going to give you them stories, then you damn well tell them.

And I just thought it was the right thing to do — come back and tell them stories as best as I could. And I keep going back, because I always think if I go back and do it again, I might do better. I think that's something I've spoken with other people — we always come back thinking, I could do a better job than that next time and the next time and next time. But it really is only natural to want to help people — if that picture or interview can give someone a voice then what else would I want to do?

Heidi: I also was really moved by what you said about how soldiers coming back from war, nobody wants to hear their stories. And being in broadcast news for 20 years, I always marveled at how every time I brought a camera anywhere, people wanted to tell their stories. And you're right, then you have an obligation to try to tell their stories to the best of your ability.

Why do you think their world does not want to hear these stories from soldiers at war? We really fucked up after Vietnam, because we turned our backs on soldiers, because we didn't like that war. And you know, that is something that still I think haunts America.

Paul: I think that the main thing is — it could be any war — any soldiers who come back from war — we send soldiers out on our behalf to do a job that most people don't want to know the mechanics of, they don’t want to know that job and the reality of doing that job.

And the opposition soldiers, they go out, they do the same, and it's something that we do. But when they come back, people don't really want to hear about it. On the bigger scale — about the ethics of whether the war was correct or not. You know, when soldiers come back, they've been actually in the trenches or in the desert or in the villages. They've been fighting the war.

After many, many wars, I can say there's no pretty side to any war really.

So when when these soldiers come back, and they sit with their family, you know what they're gonna tell their family about that war, they're gonna tell their friends at the pub about that war.

I've seen it — soldiers start talking and people automatically go, ‘Oh, that was very nice, buddy. Thank you for your service. Now shut up. I really don't want to know how this actually went and what you're paid to go and do. Don't come back and tell me what you're doing because it's bloody, it's gruesome.’ It's horrific, no pleasant way of killing someone and then making it sound good back home. So people are just closed down to them stories. And what happens is soldiers only talk about it amongst themselves. And they've all been through it. And that gets bottled up.

I was lucky I came back after a while and everyone wants to know the story. So I kept telling it — and all the dark spots, I shown lights in — and so I was quite safe, that there was nothing I hadn't thought about going to jump out at me. But these poor soldiers come back, and they never really get to talk it through. Completely. There's always dark spots. And that's why a lot of them — the suicide rates are so high — it's horrendous, the disorder, but there's a difference — I spoke about it. I wrote films. Soldiers don't get that opportunity.

Heidi: That's why transgenerational trauma exists. You know, my dad was raised during war, he was in Sudetenland, the front kept coming to his home. And it was gruesome, and he never talked about it — decades later the ghosts of war still haunt my home.

So you have been in Ukraine for two years — please tell our audience: what is the war about?

Paul: I was telling my son earlier — it's one of the most morally, clearly defined wars that I have actually covered. Usually, when you cover a conflict, there's a lot of soul searching that goes into what's right, what's wrong.

I mean, this is quite simply Vladimir Putin — from whatever kind of psychotic universe he exists in — it’s an old-fashioned land grab and attempted extermination. It doesn't go beyond that. There are no deep running narratives. He's come up with the concept that Ukraine isn't a real nation, therefore, ‘we will come in, and we will take it, and Ukraine will cease to exist’.

It's actually really quite clear, there's not a lot of studying needed. It really is grossly oversimplified, but it can be put down to, quite clearly — to good and evil setups. We haven't seen the likes of a big, territorial land grab, a genocidal land grab on this scale since World War Two.

I remember Boris Johnson being questioned about tanks. And he laughed in some Common Select Committee, and he said, ‘The days of tank battles on the plains of Western Europe are over’. Well, quite clearly, they're not.

So it's not that difficult. You know, it's not a hard question to answer. It's what we do about it. Whether that unity that has formed in the world can be maintained through a winter and another summer and another winter, you know, that is the big question.

How strong the bond is of the countries aligned against what Russia is doing is critical. If Ukraine is closed off and hung out to dry — it’s already carnage, but it will be carnage beyond belief.

If countries start backing out now when attention is off, and countries are perhaps less than fully committed distracted by other world events… it’s important our focus is not allowed to drift by events elsewhere because that is just the thing that Putin needs to get that edge is for the world to look away and for the world to blink.

Heidi: I feel like there has been blinking going on because in the time that the horrors have been happening in the Middle East, Zarina said Putin’s war machine ramped up.

But also back home — I've been writing an American Monster series, and I just wrote about Alex Jones. We have these horrible actors in the US doing Kremlin propaganda — poisoning US minds against reality and the reality of the war in Ukraine.

Paul: This is what the film we made is about, ‘Under Deadly Skies — Ukraine’s Eastern Front’ — we went to the frontline to show them from the horse's mouth, we brought the truth because of the denial.

They play the propaganda points of the Kremlin in the heart of democracy. Tucker, Carlson's show now goes on Russia Today. What more can you do, but go there and bring the footage back and say, ‘Look, this is real, this isn't something you can just say didn't happen — this is happening. These are lives people have. You can't just deny it.’

Heidi: It’s almost like there's some sort of mass psychosis — the psychological disarmament we were talking about. As somebody who sees the impacts of the kinetic war and non kinetic war every day in Ukraine and elsewhere you have covered, what is your best advice on how we stop Vladimir Putin's lie machine? Because it really is harming the world?

Paul: Terribly, yeah. I mean, look, I think we all have a responsibility. It boils down to individuals. It's about your sources. Journalists know they can trust me, and it's not that difficult to find journalists that you can trust — sources you can trust, and go back to. It’s important to not be a fool and just accept the first thing that pops up on Twitter, or Facebook or Instagram.

You know, people do have a responsibility.

When I was wounded in Syria — and I was really involved for over 10 years in Syria — I worked every angle I could to keep that story alive because Syria fell off the news cliff of death.

So I did the books and the films. I went out and I talked for years — I went to every embassy — I took every invitation to keep Syria in the news and the battle I had against the Syrian propagandists was just absolutely phenomenal.

They just flooded the whole Syria zone. They were incredibly successful to the point where people were coming up to me — people I knew were coming up saying, ‘Paul, the White Helmets, are they al Qaeda…’ That's how successful they were with Syria.

And then when Ukraine came along, it began in 2014, but when the full scale invasion happened I was prepared for the same avalanche. And weirdly enough, I don't think it has got — up until now — I don't think it gained the same traction as the the Syria propaganda machine game.

I think awareness is growing of that tactic of ‘muddy the waters’, ‘keep up the repetition’.

There's been a massive attempt at it, but I don't think people have been gripped. Because I think despite all the ‘Putin’s a three dimensional chess player’ blah blah blah, I don’t think he’s been that smart about anything.

The Fellas came along and ridiculed the Russian propaganda machine, and I don't think it ever got up to full speed. Their method now seems so old-fashioned and outdated — the propagandists, the Grey Zone — all those suspects have all fallen into becoming caricatures of themselves.

Question from Bette member at how Paul handles people oblivious and uncaring about war.

Paul: I take a look around, and I just go back in. I always tell anyone who ever asked, ‘What's it like going to places like that?’

That's what I do. I know I've got to hit the ground, I've got to find connections, and I'm comfortable with that process. The friendships forged on the fire, so to speak are really very strong, and they may be short and intense. But when you walk away from them, you know, there's a big part of me — even now — I'm back in the UK for a week. And I feel kind of bad about leaving the story.

The difficulty for me arrives when I come home, and I hear someone moaning about a phone bill or electric bill. I have to really bite my tongue and keep it firmly in the mouth. I’m better at dealing with war zones.

Heidi: Final words from you…

Paul: Hold your nerve. This isn't going to be a short, quick, precise victory — it's a grueling, bloody battlefield out there. Brave men and women in a brave country are fighting that war — and believe me, at times, it’s going back to trench warfare — in the cold and the rain.

We just have to hold on there and continue the backing, because they do deserve it. They are in many ways fighting the war that if they weren't fighting, Europe would be fighting, and in turn, the States would be fighting. They are holding back a truly evil, force of evil, so just hold your nerve.

And make it known that you don’t want to back down. Get political, make it clear that we need to see this through. They can’t fight a war looking in both directions — behind them to see if we’re coming to help and ahead of them to fight the enemy.

Heidi: Thank you for that, Paul. Lastly, what do you do to say well?

Paul: I write music. Writing and composing music when I have the time and the situation allows. I do absolutely nothing with it — it sits on a hard drive. But it makes me feel good. Occasionally, I'll drink a bottle of brandy and I'll play a tune.

Heidi: Oh, I love that. Paul, thank you so much for your work and being here with us today. I’ll look forward to seeing you on the other side.

Paul: All the best everyone.

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(Photo, courtesy Paul Conroy)