One of the most challenging parts of reporting from Egypt for tonight’s Dateline, according to SBS Correspondent Brett Mason, was to convince people that he wasn’t supporting one side or the other.
It was very difficult to try and tell those people that we’re on no one’s side.
He’s been describing how he became surrounded by huge angry crowds, who questioned what he was doing and could turn volatile very quickly if they didn’t like his answers.
“They were wanting to know what SBS was, what program is Dateline,” he says.
“It was very difficult to try and tell those people that we’re on no one’s side, and that doesn’t always go down well when you’re with a group of pro- or anti protesters.”
Brett says the key was to move on quickly and not stay in one place for more than a few minutes.
“Egyptians are very passionate, they all have opinions and views they want to share, and of course we can’t interview everyone, so some people got angry when we said we couldn’t speak with them, we had to keep moving.”
His story focuses on 48 hours in Cairo, amid the violence and bloodshed of the Friday of Anger.
“We were one of the few Western media crews who were right in the thick of it essentially at the al-Fateh Mosque,” he says.
“It was very confronting for me as a journalist to witness, to see so many dead and injured people, so many people angry that these Egyptians had been killed by other Egyptians.”
It was Brett’s ninth visit to cover the political unrest in Egypt, but he says this time it felt very different.
“Seeing people of the same nationality fighting against each other is very difficult to see and very sad,” he says.
Watch his story on Dateline tonight at 9.30pm on SBS ONE and read more now on the Dateline website.
