Burton wrote in his blog that he was trying to photograph a Mubarak supporter painting slogans over anti-Mubarak graffiti. His camera was slapped, and he was grabbed from behind. An attempt to leave the scene quickly escalated into a large-scale fight. Five or six anti-Mubarak supporters surrounded and protected him. His back was pushed against a tank and his shirt ripped open until soldiers from the tank reached down and lifted him inside to safety.

‘It was a bit surreal, it happened so quickly, I remember thinking, ‘What the f*** just happened? How the hell does one get out of this situation? I have no f***ing clue what to do,” Burton said in an e-mail to The Daily Orange.

Burton, a former special projects editor at The D.O., is just one of a number of American journalists who have been attacked and beaten while reporting on the protests in Egypt. Notable journalists who have been attacked include Christiane Amanpour, Anderson Cooper and Lara Logan.

In his blog, Burton said he traveled to Egypt because he has a serious interest in major international news photography. He called numerous editors before he left but paid for his own flight to Egypt, leaving with no idea about whether or not anyone would take his photos. Once on the ground, he learned Bloomberg News wanted to give him some assignments, he said in the e-mail. NPR, MSNBC and The Post-Standard have also run Burton’s work.

He plans to head home Tuesday because he does not have any more assignments to complete, he said. But he wishes he could stay longer, as he feels a need to be there even though it is very dangerous.

‘You feel a compulsion,’ he said. ‘Events are going to happen; you feel the need to be there. I’m not sure why, it’s something very instinctual.’

At the time of the attack, Burton was traveling alone. Before the attack, he had spent about three hours safely traveling around and photographing specific locations, including the closed Egyptian Stock Exchange, he said.

The day after the attack, he remained in his hotel and did not go out to photograph. It was difficult to stay inside for the entire day, he said, but he could not find another journalist to travel with. On the third day, other journalists confirmed the conditions were safer, and he again went out to photograph.

Bruce Strong, associate professor of photojournalism and multimedia at SU, said photojournalists in conflict areas need to try to understand the cultural underpinnings of the conflict and how the different sides are causing conflict.

‘The reason it’s important to understand those underlying currents of thought is that when you’re in that conflict situation, the streets can roll up on you pretty fast,’ he said. ‘For all the journalists there, I think they were caught off guard for how quickly the situation changed.’

Strong has been detained by forces while covering conflicts before but said he had never been in a situation like Burton’s.

‘Hopefully he has learned a lot and will be wiser and smarter as he works,’ Strong said.

Strong said young journalists need to be able to read the situation around them and quickly make the right decisions because it can be a matter of life or death.  

Strong said another Newhouse graduate student, Andrew Henderson, who is currently stationed as a staff photographer for The National in Abu Dhabi, was beaten up in Cairo last week as he was taking pictures.

‘So I’ve had – this week – two past students beat up in Cairo. We have a relatively small department, so we get to know our students really well,’ Strong said. ‘Any time a student goes off overseas, it can get dangerous.’

Burton’s father, Rick Burton, is a sport management professor at SU. He has not been in much contact with Andrew while he’s been in Egypt. Rick said he talked to his son, live, on Friday for the first time since Andrew left.

Rick and family members follow Andrew’s blog and Twitter account to stay updated. It was on Andrew’s blog that they learned of his attack.

‘It was the first time we got a sense of how close he had come to a very threatening situation,’ he said. ‘Something that gave us great confidence was that, although this was out of our control, it was under God’s control.’

He and his wife were concerned about their son’s safety, he said, but they understood why he had to go to Egypt.

‘We found out he was going the night before he left,’ Rick said. ‘We’ve known in order for him to be a great journalism photographer, he would need to go someday to where the news was.’

medelane@syr.edu