Advice from NBC’s Richard Engle

This is the release from NBC Publicity with selected clips:

NBC News’ Richard Engel was on Late Night with Seth Meyers and he gave some great advice for young journalists. He also talked about the CIA torture, living in the Middle East and volunteering as a “human shield” for Saddam Hussein.

Richard’s advice for up and coming journalists:
VIDEO: http://bit.ly/1wglART

· “It is good to have ambition- and go out to where a story is, but go slowly.”
· “Don’t just grab a camera and go to Syria because you will end up kidnapped or worse.”
· “I was in the middle east for seven years, learning the language, learning the place before I went to a real warzone. “
· “So it’s like climbing a mountain. Don’t go to Everest as your first expedition. Don’t be afraid of the mountains , just take some time.”

Richard on the CIA torture report:
VIDEO: http://bit.ly/1zTruHX

· “So there are people that I’m taking to that are happy that this is coming out because they think it is a horrible chapter in American history and a dark period after 9/11 that shouldn’t be repeated.”
· “There are other however who say- yes it is dark, but those who are taking it to task now, knew about it at the time. They are finding that hypocritical.”

Richard on being a human shield for Saddam Hussein:
VIDEO: http://bit.ly/1AjRUCA

· “I was a human shield for Saddam Hussain. …. They thought a good way to end the invasion would be to invite a whole lot of Americans and have them hold signs and chain themselves to his facilities-‘Please don’t bomb’ and he was giving out visa to Americans to come and do this- to chain themselves to oil facilities or roads.”
· “I couldn’t get a normal visa- this was not the preferred route in. “
· “So I said- I will take one of these visas-I’ll volunteer to be a human shield-obviously I had no intension of being a human shield. And I got the visa, went in and then disappeared. I went underground and faded from the regimes radar.”