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How Has No One Made a Movie About Kate Webb?
2007-05-15 23:08
by Jon Weisman

dec-katewebb02Kate Webb, a courageous foreign correspondent who forged a path for other female journalists in a four-decade career spent largely in turbulent Asian outposts, including a harrowing period in Cambodia during the Vietnam War when she was captured and presumed dead, has died. She was 64. ...

Webb was the first woman to head a bureau in a war zone for United Press International, according to Tracy Wood, a former UPI correspondent and investigative reporter for The Times who was assigned to Vietnam a year after Webb's release by her North Vietnamese captors.

"She was a reporter's reporter," Wood said Monday, "truly one of the finest war correspondents, and not just in Vietnam."

Assigned to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, Webb was one of six journalists captured by North Vietnamese troops while covering a battle in April 1971. Subjected to forced marches with little to eat or drink, malarial fevers and repeated interrogations, she emerged from the jungle after 24 days, astonishing colleagues who had already published her obituary.

Over the next decades she scored exclusives on Cambodian Premier Lon Nol's incapacitating stroke and the death of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. She also reported on revolution in the Philippines, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in India and the Persian Gulf War.

She covered the collapse of the Najibullah regime in Afghanistan, where soldiers smashed her head on the floor and tore out part of her scalp. When she retired from journalism in 2001 after 13 years as a correspondent for Agence France-Presse, she said the Kabul incident was the most frightening in a career filled with close encounters with death.

A shy, waif-like woman who spoke in a near whisper, Webb undermined the stereotype of the hard-bitten war correspondent. She was slender and pretty, with large eyes framed by a bubble of wavy brown hair. "Picture a brunet Princess Diana in jungle fatigues with about 40 more points of IQ," a UPI colleague once described her. Men fell over themselves trying to protect her, not knowing that "that was the last thing Kate needed," Wood said.

Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1943 and raised in Canberra, Australia, Webb grew up in an academic family. Her father taught political science, and her mother was a historian. Both were killed in a car accident when Webb was a teenager. She is survived by a brother and a sister. ...

- Los Angeles Times

Image credit: The Correspondent

* * *

Here's the latest from Variety on CBS' fall lineup, plus last rites being administered (sniff) for Veronica Mars.

Every thread at Screen Jam is an open chat thread.

Comments
2007-05-16 05:48:26
1.   Greg Brock
If Cate Blanchett didn't currently weigh 95 pounds, she'd be perfect.
2007-05-16 07:43:33
2.   Bob Timmermann
Veronica Mars, we hardly knew ye.
2007-05-16 09:17:36
3.   Jon Weisman
So, American Idol. Really rooting against Blake. He annoys me nearly to tears.
2007-05-16 10:50:47
4.   Benaiah
Veronica Mars didn't work nearly as well this year, but I am still going to miss it. The only plus side is that Kristin Bell is phenomenal and hopefully she will get some work soon that a lot of people will see. World's hottest vegetarian indeed.
2007-05-16 11:05:38
5.   Bob Timmermann
I will again point out that Variety.com's TV schedules only display if you use IE. They don't display right in other browsers.
2007-05-16 11:26:03
6.   Jon Weisman
5 - I'll see what I can find out about that.
2007-05-16 12:19:36
7.   joekings
3- Blake's the only one left that interests me, and by that I mean that even remotely grabs my attention. I thought this was a pretty lackluster season of AI.
2007-05-16 12:35:43
8.   Linkmeister
To essay an answer to the question Jon poses, the press has apparently not displayed heroic tendencies over the past 20 years, at least not the kind Hollywood thinks would sell as a movie. Quick: name a film since "All the President's Men" which glorified the media.

That said, after reading that brief bio, I'd have to say Webb was indeed heroic.

2007-05-16 12:51:16
9.   Suffering Bruin
My favorite blogger with some of my favorite commentators posting. I'll have to start watching more television.

I didn't watch an episode of Veronica Mars. One of my more highly respected colleagues found out and sniffed, "Your loss, I guess."

2007-05-16 12:54:32
10.   Suffering Bruin
Hey, my first double post. One of many, I hope.

Watching more television will also allow a closer connection to the kids I teach. Remember the Grey's Anatomy where the girl damn near drowned? Well, the next day, some of my kids were deeply moved by it and I didn't have the faintest idea what they were talking about.

So that's another reason to watch more TV.

2007-05-16 12:57:08
11.   Bob Timmermann
You don't need to watch "Grey's Anatomy."

We'll fill you in on any details you might miss.

2007-05-16 13:38:26
12.   Sushirabbit
Working Title: Hard people shatter
2007-05-16 13:56:03
13.   Benaiah
8 - "Zodiac" glorifies the media. That is on the shortlist of my favorite movies of the year.

I think "The Host" tops the list.

2007-05-16 14:15:41
14.   Jon Weisman
10 - I don't think Grey's Anatomy is at the top of things your kids should be watching.
2007-05-16 14:57:51
15.   Bob Timmermann
14
Despite all my bashing of "Grey's Anatomy", I still watch it. I'm waiting for the precipitating event that will make me hit the "delete" button on my DVR, so it won't record every episode.

I suppose that since I like Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson, the show gets additional lives.

2007-05-16 16:22:06
16.   Greg Brock
The Screen Jam Mafia seems to be pretty anti-Grey's. I watch the show, I like the show.

It's certainly soapish, that's for sure. But I like it!

2007-05-16 16:28:56
17.   Bob Timmermann
16
But you're going to have to switch to "Private Practice" now since your principal reason for viewing will be fleeing "Grey's."

Good luck with that show!

2007-05-16 16:33:17
18.   Greg Brock
17 I liked the quasi-pilot. They actually featured men, who were friends, and weren't total b--t--ds.

Quite the departure from Grey's.

2007-05-16 16:36:36
19.   Bob Timmermann
18
I say this with all due sincerity.

May God have mercy on your soul.

2007-05-16 16:37:49
20.   Greg Brock
19 You're just upset that Veronica Mars is gone.

Don't take it out on me, funnyman.

2007-05-16 16:40:30
21.   Bob Timmermann
20
Veronica Mars AND Gilmore Girls!
2007-05-16 18:25:33
22.   Linkmeister
Re: "Lost"

So is Locke's fate gonna have to wait till next week or the season finale before we learn what it is? I kinda thought it was raw of the writers to show Nikki and Paolo awakening as they were buried alive and not bring them back.

2007-05-16 18:32:06
23.   Mark T.R. Donohue
I too lament the untimely passing of "Veronica Mars," but it could have been much worse. The first and second seasons of the show stand very well on their own as self-contained, 24-episode stories. For the third season the show got cut adrift by the network's insistence on shorter arcs. They should have known that sending Veronica to college wouldn't be any more believable than sending Buffy or the "90210" gang to college.

I wonder what might have happened had Rob Thomas had his brainstorm about re-launching the show with Veronica a few years in the future as a rookie FBI agent a season earlier. That might have had a chance to be a creatively AND commercially successful show, although no one can claim to know the minds of American TV viewers.

It's a blow, but not as big as the cancellations of "Firefly" and "Carnivale" with so many major story developments on the table.

2007-05-16 18:46:25
24.   Benaiah
The news from the interweb:

Jenna Fischer fell down a flight of marble stairs and fractured her lower back in four places. She is expected to make a full recovery in 4-6 weeks. As Jenna is one of my favorite that I have never met, I wish her a speedy recovery.

http://tinyurl.com/2r3vk9

And tvguide.com says that while "Veronica Mars" will definitely not be on The CW's Upfront presentation on Thursday, there is a slight chance that they will hold off on making a final decision until mid-June (maybe giving Rob Thomas time to make a pilot episode of the FBI show). This is a ray of hope for all the people who love the show.

http://tinyurl.com/syajl

2007-05-16 19:00:42
25.   Benaiah
Mark, you must be very pleased with the American Idol finale.
2007-05-16 19:27:57
26.   Jon Weisman
No spoilers!
2007-05-16 19:29:40
27.   Jon Weisman
24 - Major ugh. God, I feel bad for her. If it's only 4-6 weeks for that kind of injury, that seems lucky.
2007-05-16 19:38:29
28.   Jon Weisman
New post up top.
2007-05-16 20:14:10
29.   Benaiah
Crap, sorry. I forgot the show was filmed live in LA and then tape delayed for LA.

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