This is the first in a series of interiews with Colorado journalists. The Q&A with former foreign correspondent Greg Dobbs occurred on Aug. 22.

By Ed Otte

During his 23-year career with ABC News Greg Dobbs covered stories in more than 60 countries and 49 states, appearing on ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20 and Good Morning America He served in the ABC bureaus in London and Paris, and reported on the Gulf War, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, civil war in Beirut, Iran-Iraq war, civil war in Northern Ireland, civil war in Rhodesia and other conflicts around the world. He won two national Emmys for his work and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Dobbs retired from ABC in 1992 and lives in Evergreen. He has been the chief correspondent and anchor for the weekly “World Report” on HDNet, served as a talk show host on KOA radio and on “Colorado State of Mind” on Rocky Mountain PBS. His book “Life in the Wrong Lane” was published in 2008 and he wrote “Better Broadcast Writing, Better Broadcast News” for use in college journalism programs. His guest commentary also appears in The Denver Post.

Question: What was your reaction to the killing of freelance American journalist James Foley?

Dobbs: My reaction to Foley’s execution was as much the reaction of a Westerner as it was that of a journalist: horror, not only that a good man was unjustly and brutally murdered, but that it probably will chill the enthusiasm of other journalists to cover some of the world’s most dangerous places, which puts a chill on our ability as citizens to assess what’s going on and intelligently decide what policies our nations should pursue.

Q: Should the U.S. government pay ransom for the release of captured journalists?

Dobbs: Sorry to say but my answer is no. It would only encourage more terrorists to take more journalists hostage. That doesn’t mean the government couldn’t take other steps to try to win the release of hostages, whether journalists or not – there are other quid pro quos and other Western nations have done that for a long time. But in the decades that I covered the Middle East, kidnappings for ransom were a tradition, so this is nothing new; during the civil war in Beirut, it happened every day of the week, carried out as a means of financing one militia or another. ISIS is not the first militant group to make money, and lots of it, from demanding ransoms for hostages. Interestingly, fewer Americans are kidnapped in the Middle East than other Westerners, perhaps because the U.S. is not prone to pay ransom.

Q: How can journalists stay out of harm’s way while covering wars?

Dobbs: Simple answer: journalists shouldn’t. What I learned, sometimes the hard way, was how far to push and when to pull back. So perhaps the answer is, news organizations should go to pains to send journalists into war zones who are seasoned in making these decisions. The catch is, the only way to become seasoned is to start as a rookie and just hope you survive the first few times and come out smarter.

Q: Who is responsible for the safety of journalists?

Dobbs: Ultimately, journalists themselves are responsible for their own safety. But their sponsors – the news organizations for which they work either as freelancers or on staff – should provide training in both cultural norms of the region at war and physical protection. ABC News gave some of that to me and there were a few times in a few places when it probably helped keep me alive.

Q: Is any story worth risking a journalist’s life?

Dobbs: The anwer is, yes, almost! If the odds of losing your life are almost inevitably high, then the story must suffer. But like people in other occupations, risk is part of the contract. What’s more, if a journalist is not drawn to such risks, then he or she probably shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Q: Are photographers more vulnerable in these situations because they must be closer to the action?

Dobbs: Yes, photographers are more vulnerable than writers, but to be immodest for a moment, I never, never sent a camera crew out ahead of me toward a perilous situation into which I wouldn’t go myself. If the photographer can see things better close up, so can the reporter and the reporter thus must go just as close.