Paul Watson

Journalist with the LA Times, Paul Watson inscribes his book "Where War Lives" (McClelland, 2007) for readers in attendance at the Library and Archives Wednesday evening. The evening was particulary poignant in that two Canadian soldiers were killed in action Wednesday in Afghanistan, including two injured Radio Canada journalists.

WHERE WAR LIVES: An evening with Paul Watson
Hosted by the Ottawa Citizen's Kate Heartfield
$12 General / $10 Student/Senior / Free for Members 7:30pm

From OIWF website:
"A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist takes us on a personal and historic journey. Paul Watson was born a rebel with one hand, who grew up thinking it took two to fire an assault rifle, or play jazz piano. So he became a journalist. At first, he loved war. He fed his lust for the bang-bang by spending vacations with guerilla fighters in Angola, Eritrea, Sudan, and Somalia, and writing about conflicts on the frontlines of the Cold War. Soon he graduated to assignments covering some of the world’s most important conflicts, including South Africa, Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Watson reported on Osama bin Laden’s first battlefield victory in Somalia. Unwittingly, Watson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Staff Sgt. David Cleveland — whose Black Hawk was shot down over the streets of Mogadishu — helped hand bin Laden one of his earliest propaganda coups, one that proved barbarity is a powerful weapon in a modern media war. Public outrage over the pictures of Cleveland’s corpse forced President Clinton to order the world’s most powerful military into retreat. With each new beheading announced on the news, Watson wonders whether he helped teach the terrorists one of their most valuable lessons. Much more than a journalist’s memoir, Where War Lives connects the dots of the historic continuum from Mogadishu through Rwanda to Afghanistan and Iraq."

Paul Watson, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photojournalist.