[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'll shop if I point to Eve, let's record it. Journalists, let's fair to say the profession can get a bad rap, and in some cases, rightfully so.
“But I believe that not all journalists are created equal,”
and there truly are some incredible people
that seek out important stories that need to be told. As someone who myself has been telling stories for most of my professional career, there are a handful of these journalists that I look up to for their work and for different reasons.
One man, for instance, is called Michael McIntyre, someone who I grew up watching, a man who inserted himself under cover into the underworld of the United Kingdom, including with football hooligans at the late 90s. The bravery and skill it takes to go undercover is one thing,
but to also make a documentary about it at the same time, is another level entirely. Then, there's a man I'm sure, most of you, if not all of you, will know a man my wife likes to joke is my whole pass, Louis Theroux.
I've watched, listen, and read everything this man has done over the years, and his skill of being able to drop himself into such varying situation and extracting
incredible stories is, in my opinion, second to none.
And then, well, then there's a breed of journalists
“who I think embodies both of what Michael and Louis do,”
and then some, and that's war journalists. But not just any war journalist. There is one in particular that I hold in very high esteem. Hey, here we go. Oh, sorry, Jack.
There we go, oh, good mate, how are you? I'm very good. Belinks, it's Merry Christmas. Yeah, I said to you, so I was going to say, how was your, how was your Christmas, was it all right?
British journalist and documentary filmmaker Sean Langen
in my opinion, though, is more than just the war journalist.
Because going to a war zone with a camera crew to a report on conflicts around the world, his one thing, Sean doesn't just go to war zones. He embeds himself in them.
“He travels alongside men and women fighting”
on the front lines. He sleeps where they sleep, patrols alongside them. And of course, gets shot out alongside them as well. Just stop filming. And a rocket hit up, position.
[MUSIC PLAYING] For this flying. But not only does he do all of this, but he does it alone. No camera crew, no soundguys, no lighting, no producers, just him, a camera, and an often highly volatile
and unpredictable war zone. However, yet again, there is something else that sets what Sean does apart from anyone else, because Sean, much like myself, is very interested in the other side of the story.
The side that many deem in a lot of cases, the wrong side. In 2022, I made the decision to create a crime podcast that focused on what many deem to be that wrong side, as well. As I said, out to interview the men and women convicted of crimes to find out what they had to say,
what they are version of the chaos was. However, of course, I did this from the safety of my own home. Sean, well, Sean has on more than one occasion flown to war-torn countries to get the stories from those on the wrong side, placing himself
an incredibly dangerous situation. He's been transported through remote rural areas blindfolded. He's been held at gunpoint, threatened with death, and in 2008, was kidnapped by the Taliban.
And would spend 12 weeks not knowing if he would live or die. I said, look, if you're going to execute me, because I probably have a might throw gun. Do you mind if I'm short? And they discuss that with the Mueller.
My name's Jack Lawrence. Welcome to what I survived. ♪ Born in the sky ♪ ♪ I'm looking at the moon in the sky ♪ ♪ The shooting calm eyes the surprise but I can't sleep ♪
♪ Born in my mind ♪ ♪ I'm trying to fight war in my mind ♪ ♪ I don't know who's the winner tonight but it ain't good ♪ - Chat to one, the acid house rave correspondent.
- So where were you born and grew up?
- So born in London, grew up in London, North London, with immigrant parents, so I,
“which always think was a great advantage,”
because I'm born and bred London, went to a sort of grammar school, with an Irish father from Dublin, and a mother from Portugal, from Lisbon, so they met in London.
So there was always the outsider's perspective.
You know, having an Irish father, you didn't take all the media stuff for granted about England when it came to the Northern Ireland issue. So I was thinking, it was a great advantage for me, later on in life, becoming a journalist,
having no sort of outside influence, it allowed me to, it gave me perspective, I think I might not have had. - So what you were, a studious kid was, was journalism, something you always wanted to do,
I see the answer straight away. - So I was naturally talented. I was just looking around, it's no one in my family, listening otherwise you would have heard some laughs on my one. - No, I was quite rebellious teenager,
but before that, you know, the young kid loved football, Crap at cricket, and then teenage years in London, you know,
it was just, I was a little bit too young
for the original explosion, but loved punk. So you know, 16, 17, I'm dying my hair, wearing bondage trousers, going to see the clash. Love, Johnny Ross and the Sex Bistars, got it, didn't ever go expelled,
but I was, you know, I was sort of a board line,
“more interested in social life and study, I think it's the answer.”
- Well, would you say you were a risk take her as a kid? - So it's weird, I went to the 40th anniversary of my school recently, and a lot of the kids there, now old men were saying, you know, they kind of knew I was going to end up doing that sort of thing,
which is odd, 'cause I didn't have that stage of my life had no idea. And I asked one of them, why? This is my remember school assembly once, you street naked through the school assembly now.
I don't know how he saw that, that I would end up as a journalist, water, and as, but it didn't surprise the other people less. - So Sean had no ambitions to be a journalist growing up, but eventually in his final year of school
before university, he meets a guy who would become his best mate. And that mate was heading off to Oxford to become a journalist, a career again, Sean hadn't even thought of. So with that, he decided, why not?
- It wasn't war journalism, but it was what they call lifestyle, journalism, rang about cultural pieces, lifestyle pieces. And it was a great time, you know, to be in London, that's when journalism was well paid. So I was getting paid to review movies, restaurants,
and then night clubs, you know, I became the Assythouse rave correspondent, I had a column on a paper. - I mean, my body, my body, my body, my body.
- Pregain is early 20, Sean is now basically getting paid
to have fun going to Barcelona, I'd be third clubs in London, interviewing DJs, and just having the time of his life. And when he thought it couldn't get any better, he lands himself a side hustle, with Australian TV, broadcaster ABC.
- Now, he's so weird, this may not mean anything to anyone outside Australia, right?
“I think you might enhance anything on your age.”
- So I was given the key from heaven, which was the London correspondent for Countdown Revolution. I was interviewed by Molly Meldron. - Oh, no, why the Molly Meldron? - I think it's very much given well from the Countdown,
looks as if Mrs. Finn's sons are in dire trouble. They're almost like a Friday at the third end. That's the new single dirty creatures. We've got a great Countdown tonight. We've got the two audates of Shaken Stevens,
Elton John, the Jan, and-- - Okay, so just quickly for anyone not from Australia. Molly Meldron is a household name here. He was a music critic journalist, record producer, a music entrepreneur, and a mainstay of Australian television
for several decades, hosting many shows, but most notably the music show Countdown, which is the TV show that Sean was being interviewed for by the Molly Meldron. (upbeat music)
- Now, I didn't know who the Molly Meldron was and this the interview took place at nine in the morning in the hotel in London. You know, I'm about 22 years old. Open the door open as this hotel room.
There's a guy in box of shorts, an Australian sort of Stetson and a Potter Champagne, and he invited me in. I got the job. (laughing)
That was all completely above board. - I'm sure it was. - It was, but you know, you're 24, so a B.C. at that point had money. And also, all the big rock stars and pop bands
in London and around the world. Australia's quite far to go to if you're just promoting one album, but if you've got A.B.C. guy in London with a camera crew, I just was getting put in limos to do, you know,
simple wines, flown to Spain.
So, the best one I ever did during the 1990 World Cup,
I rang A.B.C. now, it's a music show Countdown.
“And I said, so look, I really think you should send me”
to Italy to cover the world cup and they were like, wait, wait, wait, wait, we're not a sports program. And then like, what's the angle? And I said, there's lots of Italian Australians in Melbourne, Italy, I'll do the youth things.
Anyway, okay, so I know for you, I spent two weeks in Italy going to football games, covering the world cup. - John's really having the time of his life, getting paid great money to write about music,
clubs, football, and the social scene. So, how on earth, or why on earth does a man go from that to war zones and meetings with the Taliban? Well, Sean and had enough of interviewing DJs about Beats per minute and was jaded
and looking for a new challenge. And it just so happens that that new challenge presented itself on the news in November of 1989. - I'm Peter Jennings in New York just a short while ago astonishing news from East Germany, where the East German authorities
have said in essence of the Berlin Wall doesn't mean anything anymore.
“The Wall of the East Germans put up in 1964.”
- From the Berlin Wall specifically, take a look at them. They've been there since last night. They are here in the thousands. They are here in the tens of thousands. Occasionally, they shout, "demo almost vect the wall."
- The city erupted in a frenzy of celebration. East German border guards watched as jubilant crowds danced on the infamous Berlin Wall that's diverting. The Berlin Wall collapse, and I started going off to East Europe a couple of bit, you know,
and just pitching the newspaper that I'd previously been writing about, 90s, I'd fallen out like, "Hound, "the loving thing about war, "journalism, or foreign journalism."
It's the only church that don't care who you are. It's where you are when you're caught. It's a few calls from Berlin and the walls coming down. It's about who you are, who you know. And it was really a merit to credit refreshing.
And I think my first proper gig
as a foreign journalist, I covered the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was in the Baltics, Latvia, Lithuania in 1990, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, and I was getting writing for newspapers, and it just loved it.
(upbeat music) - Chapter two, meeting the Taliban. Sort of head is new bug. Gritty real news that was those life-changing events happening around the globe.
However, he wanted to move beyond the daily bulletins, and dig deeper into these stories. - I didn't like that pressure of just filing new stories, it's exciting, but it didn't really capture the news, but not the essence of the people hanging out
in the Soviet Union. It was just amazing seeing this thing collapse around you, and it was falling apart.
And you're something we'd never, my generation,
thought would never fall apart. You know, like the Berlin Wall was like the piraments, it was a permanent fixture, Germany was divided, the Soviet Union, here it was just falling apart around you. And I found that amazing,
and I didn't think the news filing new stories really was the way to tell that. So when I came back, I had this girlfriend at the time, when I was dipping my toe into foreign journalism, and she dumped me, and because I had a broken heart,
suddenly being in London, London, media, that whole freelance rat race didn't seem so important, you know, 'cause I'd just been dumped and broken hearted. And it was coincidentally, I was going to cash me it. ♪ See you ♪
And I was doing a story for a squire magazine about four British families, and Norwegian, and an American tourist. They'd all been kidnapped backpacks. (upbeat music) ♪ I am all paid, so we all dropped. ♪
♪ Many days was very nice over the mountains ♪ ♪ But I am so tired ♪
“♪ The news you have to eat has been okay to me ♪”
♪ I wish you knew that I am okay ♪ ♪ But I did not know it today ♪ ♪ But I did not know it today ♪ - Before '91, before '91, '11, I'll kite her. No one really knew about Islamic extremists,
and cash me it's a sort of state in the north of India. It's got sort of Islamic movements, and it was fighting. So these five tourists have been kidnapped, and the BBC said they had something called video diet, where they handed out small cameras,
which had just come out of the market, to members of the public, to film their lives, to film a video diary. They normally don't give it to journalists, but they realise I'm such a shit journalist.
I might as well have been a member of the public,
'cause they were a journalist to be editing themselves,
filming a certain way.
No, I didn't know how to do anything,
so with a cut-off story short,
“because I didn't have anything to come home to.”
At the end of the two weeks, the families were going back to London, the parents of these poor kids who been kidnapped. We found out later they were killed. Someone came into their hotel saying,
'I can introduce you to the kidnappers, I know them.' At any point, did you think, like, well, they've taken these four Western hostages. I am just another Westerner. Maybe I might become another hostage.
No, it's good, yeah. I'm laughing on my own stupidity. The fact that that hadn't occurred to me kind of gives you your answer, doesn't it? I'm like, oh, it's a good question.
I'll ask you if I tell you something, Kashmir is in the north of India, and it's in the Hindu Kush mountains. So in fact, Afghanistan and the Pakistan tribal areas, it's literally a short hop.
So in '90, there I am in Kashmir,
“trying to track down Islamic institutions”
who kidnapped and beheaded some Western backpackers. 10 years later, when I'm kidnapped myself by the Taliban, I'm in the tribal areas of Pakistan. I'm lying in myself, and it's suddenly like, fuck. I've forgotten, you know, 10 years before my first documentaries
about some Western backpackers kidnapped and killed by Islamic extremists. And there I am lying in a cell, having me kidnapped. And I thought, Mike, journeyed, literally, gone from a kidnapped case to a kidnapped case.
And I traveled only a few hundred miles. I was literally, was not a long journey, with hindsight, my trajectory. One might say it was inevitable. My first documentary, up in the mountains,
risking, as you say, taking great risks. And then 10 years later, I'm kidnapped. And some have said, you know,
it's amazing if it didn't happen much sooner.
I was really determined to get to the kidnappers.
“You had real goal, clear goal, meaning in life,”
and cashment is just the most magical place in the world. I mean, it's just stunning. And I spent eight months, the BBC thought, I'd gone mad, forgot about me. And I came back, and I had this amazing footage.
It became a three-part documentary series. And literally, as things happened in the media, the next year they were like, wow, I used to do this great film with these guys who bearded some AK-47s, these Islamic extremists that no one had really heard of.
Why didn't you go to Afghanistan? There's a group called the Taliban. And people don't only kind of vaguely heard of the Taliban as these rumors and myths of this extreme group who'd banned all TV and radio,
who were then running Afghanistan. And I went off, and that was the year before 9/11. (suspenseful music) The Taliban, say that name today, and everyone knows instantly who they are,
and what they're capable of.
But of course, that wasn't always the case.
They would eventually become a household name, after an attack on the United States that was being around the world into every single household globally. - We do have some breaking news
that we wanna bring you around. And we're gonna go to a picture of live picture from New York City, apparently a plane has crashed into the world trade center in New York, 852, limited information at this.
- Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. - When 9/11 happened, the Taliban would actually condemn what had happened.
However, would soon be thrust alongside those who were said to have committed this atrocity. Anyone alive that day will know exactly where they were when they heard the news. I was 16 at the time, and was walking home from school
with a friend when we stopped into his house. As we walked in, his mum was fixated on the TV. She simply turned to us and said, "America is under attack." Of course, at the time, no one was really sure
what was going on or what this will meant. Other than the fact that this was a life-changing event. Immediately after 9/11, no one claimed responsibility for the attack, but focus was placed on Al Qaeda, as intercepted communications pointed to a man named as some
have been laden, as the mastermind. Following 9/11, then President Bush told the American public and the world that the Islamic militant group Al Qaeda were, indeed, responsible for the devastating attacks. And the Taliban regime of Afghanistan were providing
A safe haven for this terrorist organization.
And of course, we all know the story from there.
“On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes”
against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist-based of operations.
Operation enduring freedom was launched and troops entered Afghanistan with the initial invasion aimed to house the Taliban, and dismantle Al Qaeda. It was a war that would last 20 years,
until the final withdrawal of American troops in August of 2021. And the Taliban simply regained control of the country. However, before the 20 years of bloodshed, before those planes flew into the towers, the Taliban were by no means mainstream news.
However, their strict rule and archaic views had picked the interest of some in the media. And so, Sean was on a flight. Arriving soon in Jalalabad where he says "Our Kaira were anything but discrete
about what it is, they were up to." I saw a song in the Jalalabad. It was an open terrorist training camp going on.
“And I remember thinking on intelligence agencies”
must know all about this. If an idiot like me can see, only if you'd be in Jalalabad thousands of arrows meeting, training, and they weren't there on the holiday. And somehow it took the world by surprise. So at 9/11/1/2, and then my career just took off,
because I was filming in that hot-the-world with Islamic extremists. The original film was when the Taliban were running afghanistan before 9/11 in 1998, 1998, 2000. And the film I made then with them.
It was the first documentary I've ever made about the Taliban.
And I called that "T" with the Taliban and made two another one from Carbel Vise. Then after 9/11 and the US invaded the occupation, it actually became more dangerous for Western journalists going back to afghanistan.
So now the Americans were running it, or there was an afghan government pro-american. The Taliban now were in Surgeon's terrorist fighting, where it's when I originally went, they were the government. When I went back in 2005, when I was back,
every my marriage didn't last long. The woman I, who dumped me, I then married for enough. But she left me, because as she said, I spent more time than what she did, you know, worked your mind marriage. But the meeting that the Taliban was incredibly dangerous,
because now they were in insurgency fighting Australians, British, Americans, Canadians. And that filled my mind made in 2007. And it was incredibly risky to dangerous to even attempt to meet them. And no one now had made at that point.
There was lots of journalists covering the Western NATO forces, I self, they were called, and I met, you know, Canadians, Australia, British, Americans, but no one has entered the Taliban who are already in my mind, clearly, gaining a supremacy in the battlefield.
So it was never battles, but hit and runs.
So that was the point of the film trying to see things from their perspective. So meet the Taliban he did. And as he sat down with the leader of the group, he was given a warning, a warning that would later echo through his mind, as he would sit in captivity.
Having been told, there's very thing could end up happening. I was with a group of Taliban in Helman Province, known you'd into a group of five or six or two or three men. But about 60, 70 Taliban roll into this compound and jump out, surrounded, and it's pretty sketchy, and I remember one guy with a big butcher's knife.
I do two things when I'm in shock and I'm pretty sure life, my life could end is, I slow down, which is very good to shock. No fast movements help with some people carrying guns and knives. So I go into a kind of shock, I tend to laugh in appropriately. I also for some reason, I become like the English gentleman abroad,
“the idea abroad, when I think someone's going to kill me.”
So I started apologizing and saying, I'm terribly sorry. So at this point when the guy's got a big knife, I'm saying, you know, I'm like, oh, is that for me or for a goat? Yeah, because they're up to set. And he's waving in the camera, no, no, it's only, I only kill Americans with this,
and we laugh, and I keep apologizing and saying, I'm terribly sorry.
The commander who'd clearly take him pity on me,
sits me down by the side of this river, the Holman river,
“and he says, look, you don't want to try to do this too often.”
In between Taliban. He said, because before you came down, we took a vote, or whether to kill you, kidnapped you, or let you do the interview. And he's all waving around, all his men were kind of looking at me.
So this time, the vote went your way, but you'll never know until it's too late.
And it kind of hit me, you know, funk, you know, because had to his point was, if they vote to kill you or kidnapped you, they're not going to, you'll know that when you arrive, they'll think he would don't need to do this.
“Before Sean's eventual kidnapping, there would be a number of times”
that he would in fact come close to death. Death at the hands of these men, and it was only by sheer luck that he escaped with his life. I was in a really dangerous part, and it's all pretty dangerous,
but because they always invited you into their territory,
so and checked you up in followed, either high in the mountains or in the desert. So I was spending a lot of time with a Saul swallowing communities, the local clothes, in the back of a car, had a beard. In no man's land, it was very dangerous, and another occasion we would put up against a wall and six towering came in and raised their rifles.
This is how I've seen you earlier, where I, in shock, I sort of laugh, I get a fear of vehicles, and I also come ridiculously English. So I'm up against the wall, and these men are just there with guns, right, really close, like a couple of, you know, less than two feet of foot, so away from my face, not saying anything, and they're command of walks in behind.
And I'm like, because I thought I was there to infuse them. And I look at my fixer, he's doing the Islamic prayer, the lot is giving himself the last right. Now being English, I didn't want to interrupt his prayer, but I had a pressing question. So I'm leaning in tapping gently, but like, oh, I'm so sorry, and he's, he's really,
he's in his own world praying. So I finally, I'm like, I tap him, I say look, I'm so sorry.
I don't mean to interrupt your prayer. He's like, what, what is it? I say, it's just a firing squad. And he, he, he drops his hands and he looks at me like, he, he, he was dumbfounded, I see rightly, and he's like, well, what else could this be? And I look at them when I start laughing, because obviously it's a, well, what a stupid question. And as we're both now laughing at the, the, how I'd asked the stupidest question in the world, the Taliban command is looking at this.
And this is clearly not the reaction that he's normally seen when they're about to shoot some. So he clicks his finger and they'll put their guns down and he says, uh, why is this foreign laughing, you know, we're about to shoot him. And my fixer, my afghan fixer says, this stupid
“foreign journalist has just asked the most ridiculous question. You know, he asked, is this a foreign squad?”
And the commander went, he'll, yeah, obviously, and then went, hang on, oh, he's a foreign journalist. We were told that we were only told a foreigner was coming to this village to me as so we thought he could be a foreign spy. And then they said, that, that's fine. We like journalists. Let's do an interview. And I remember my thick, at that point I couldn't speak. I was in now in total shock. And we had to do an interview. The documentary, you called meeting the Taliban, would be so well received by the public and
TV bosses alike, that it would in fact be suggested that he go back again. However, this time, they were no warnings. They were no pleasantries. And there was no escape. And then I suddenly hear the connection and the voice, hello, Channel 4 switchboard. I like, I like, sorry, a bit weird to call this. My name's Sean Langen. I work for Channel 5, I've been kidnapped by the Taliban. Next time, on what I survived.
I can't sleep, or in my mind. I'm trying to fight war in my mind. I don't know who's the winner tonight, but it ain't me.
