How War Correspondents Unwind

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Here’s a CNN foreign/war correspondent gag reel put together at what appears to be a refugee camp in Skopje, Macedonia, seemingly in 1999, though possibly later. The video which runs some 12 minutes long includes some faces who still work for the network like Matthew Chance and Ben Wedeman, one of the bravest and best war correspondents around. The reel ranges from funny to awkward to moments in really questionable taste.

The existence of this thing is sort of a time capsule from the pre-youtube era, the pre-smartphone era when there wasn’t a way these things could easily get posted for the whole world to see. A reader flagged to me this evening that it had been posted on Youtube. Figuring it wouldn’t be there for long I secured a copy.

As I said above, the gag reel ranges from funny to awkward to at least a few moments in pretty questionable taste. Throughout, it’s surreal.

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