'I can still taste the cordite, 20 years later'

Journalists are increasingly at risk as they cover violent situations. But the dangers are mental as well as physical, says Chris Cramer, president of CNN, and a hostage in the Iranian Embassy siege exactly 20 years ago

As screams and shouts echoed around the embassy, a tiny man with Middle East features jumped into the room waving a black machine pistol. Wound around his face was a keffiyeh, an Arab headdress, and in his other hand a bright green hand grenade with the pin partially removed. As he hopped around the room like a crab, I realised that I had turned from a BBC journalist into a victim.

Twenty years ago this week I suffered the indignity of being taken hostage - not in a Beirut suburb or some far-flung warzone, but in the elegant surroundings of the Iranian Embassy in Prince's Gate in Knightsbridge, London. It was the start of one of Britain's bloodiest and most historic terrorist incidents as 26 men and women were taken hostage by six gunmen representing an obscure separatist movement inside Iran.

Six days later, after one hostage was murdered and others were selected for execution, soldiers from the Special Air Services were deployed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. They stormed the embassy in broad daylight and in full view of television viewers around the world. As they rescued the hostages and killed all but one of the gunmen, it was their finest hour.

It was probably my darkest. When the rescue came I was cowering in the basement of a building next to the embassy, having been released four days earlier and then, amazingly, brought back to the scene as part of an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the gunmen to surrender and free the hostages.

Twenty years later I can still smell and taste the cordite as the small band of SAS soldiers blew in the embassy windows and shot their way to the rescue. I can also remember the feelings of great relief that the hostage ordeal was over, tinged with tangible feelings of guilt that I had left the embassy before the siege was ended.

In a later book, Hostage, co-authored with my fellow hostage, BBC sound recordist Sim Harris, I described these feelings as follows: "I don't regret being released, but I regret the feelings of shame which I suffered because of it. The nightmares and dreams I had afterwards would always be the same. I would dream that I would leave the embassy with a machine gun in my hand and a pocketful of hand grenades. In front of me walked the six terrorists with their hands in the air. The television cameras were rolling and I would be a national hero."

If the events of 20 years ago have left any mark on me - and it is for others to judge - they certainly changed my views on two important issues. The role of the media at incidents such as the Iranian Embassy siege and the role that stress counsellors and psychiatrists have to play after events such as these.

I believe that if there is one thing guaranteed to concentrate a journalist's mind on responsible reporting of a hostage situation, it is being a hostage yourself. After the siege I lost my nerve when it came to working on location, went into management and became the head of news-gathering at the BBC and later president of CNN International.

I have many times been in a position to determine how a breaking news channel reports on a siege, a hostage-taking incident or on tragedies such as the school shootings in 1996 in Dunblane, Scotland, or last year at Columbine High School in the United States.

The British and American media have learned some hard lessons over the years about the dangers of irresponsible, speculative or downright shoddy reporting. We realise that, more often than not, hostage takers have access to radio and television and are well aware of the extent to which they can attempt to "use" the media to further their cause.

Most responsible news organisations, like CNN and BBC, have strict guidelines for reporting on hostage and siege situations. We continue to learn from each and every incident and will doubtless learn some more as the media and internet explosion continues.

On the issue of psychiatric stress or grief counselling after a traumatic event, I have completely changed my mind. In 1980 I was twice offered a hostage "debrief", once by the BBC and once by the Home Office psychiatrist who was on hand in Britain to guide the police during tense hostage negotiations. I refused both offers of help and did what seemed appropriate.

"Go out this evening, get drunk and get laid," said a helpful BBC News boss, deploying his own form of stress counselling.

I was back at work the day after the siege ended. With hindsight, I should have accepted the offers for psychiatric help, as many of my fellow hostages did, and maybe saved myself many years of stress and anxiety. The condition known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was unheard of in l980 and has been treated with suspicion by most in the media until fairly recently.

These days stress counselling is treated as a practical way of supporting a victim after a traumatic or near-death experience. Members of the police, fire and ambulance service are routinely offered the service. Attendance for many of the soldiers and airmen returning from the Gulf war was mandatory.

Before I left the BBC in 1996 I was able to introduce a similar voluntary scheme for some of the correspondents, producers and cameramen who are assigned to warzones and the coverage of tragic events. We were already offering training on how to work in a hostile environment, a series of practical training courses on how to stay out of harm's way while working in global trouble spots. This scheme has now spread to many other parts of the media, including CNN.

On Monday at the Freedom Forum in London, the Rory Peck Trust together with CNN, BBC News, ITN, The Guardian and the Financial Times will announce a cross-media initiative to enable freelancers working in the media to undertake hostile environment safety training.

My own humbling experience in May 1980 taught me the hard lesson that members of the media are never immune to what they report on and photograph; that victims exist on both sides of the camera.

The writer is the president of CNN International