.Courage in Coverage
Yesterday's release of American journalist Jill Carroll makes this a good moment to celebrate the work that reporters are doing every day in Iraq. They are taking huge personal risks to bring back the news -- not "good news," as some supporters of the administration often seem to want, but the news.
Anyone taking potshots at the "mainstream media" should read the description of what it's like to cover Baghdad that appears in the April/May issue of the American Journalism Review. The story opens with a description of NPR's Deborah Amos, dressed in Arab clothes, anxiously scanning the street for bombers and kidnappers as she heads for an interview in the protected Green Zone. And that's an easy assignment.
Like most resident correspondents, National Public Radio reporters such as Amos live and work in the "Red Zone" -- meaning the real Iraq. These reporters are in daily contact, through their Iraqi staffs, with the nightmare the Iraqi people are experiencing. When their reporting contrasts with the more upbeat accounts coming out of the Green Zone, the reporters in the Red Zone generally have been right, for a simple reason: They are closer to the story.
Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times showed what you learn out in the Red Zone in stories Sunday about the spread of gruesome revenge killings: "By conservative counts, nearly 200 civilian men have been executed in the past two weeks and dumped on Baghdad's streets. Many have been hogtied. Some have had acid splashed on their faces. Others have been found without toes, fingers, eyes." Gettleman, who had been away from Iraq for more than a year, wrote that something fundamental had changed: The violence had "turned inward" into sectarian warfare.
A strong warning about the rise in sectarian violence came from my Post colleague Ellen Knickmeyer. She reported in February, after a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra was destroyed, that Shiite militiamen were brutally killing Sunnis. Her sources said Iraqi and international officials tallied more than a thousand bodies. Her reports were criticized by U.S. officials in the Green Zone, who said the number was far smaller. The dispute obscured the deeper truth that Knickmeyer was reporting: the sharp increase in brutal killings by Shiite death squads. Fortunately that point wasn't lost on U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has warned in recent days that America will not support an Iraqi government that doesn't crack down on the Shiite militias.
Western journalists in Baghdad depend increasingly on our Iraqi colleagues, who are some of the bravest reporters in the world. Several of the best Iraqi journalists have created their own blogs. In one, 24 Steps to Liberty, an Iraqi reporter described the living hell of Baghdad's al-Rabie Street on Sunday: "Driving in this street after six p.m. makes every thought of killing, kidnapping, insurgents, and everything bad . . . become present in your mind. That is what the Iraqis see every night."
Another brave Iraqi reporter, whose blog is Treasure of Baghdad, recounted this week a terrifying experience at his home when people opened fire nearby. "I first thought these were the 'men in black' breaking into the houses of my Sunni neighbors trying to kill them, then I thought these might be Sunni insurgent[s] trying to break into the houses of the few Shiite families that live in the same street." His father cocked his rifle to defend the family, but the gunmen went away.
American journalists report the successes of U.S. policy, and there have been some lately, at a level above the mean streets of Baghdad. Iraqi political leaders have been meeting to try to form a national unity government, and the Iraqi army is showing signs of becoming a better fighting force. But there are also some horrific stories: Time magazine published a disturbing account in its March 27 issue about how U.S. Marines are believed to have killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes in Haditha last November after a roadside bomb attack. This may prove a shocking tale when more details emerge about what happened, but it's a story that journalists must report.
Supporters of the Bush administration sometimes argue that journalists should report more good news. Certainly we need to tell the stories of the thousands of brave and decent Americans and Iraqis who are trying every day to make the country better. And if an Iraqi unity government can take hold and restore stability, there will be a stampede of reporters to cover this success. But a reporter's job is to tell the truth, even when it hurts. Americans should be grateful that reporters such as Jill Carroll are risking their lives to chronicle this agonizing story -- and tell Americans not what they want to hear, but what they need to know.
WaPo
H/T 24 Steps to Liberty
Anyone taking potshots at the "mainstream media" should read the description of what it's like to cover Baghdad that appears in the April/May issue of the American Journalism Review. The story opens with a description of NPR's Deborah Amos, dressed in Arab clothes, anxiously scanning the street for bombers and kidnappers as she heads for an interview in the protected Green Zone. And that's an easy assignment.
Like most resident correspondents, National Public Radio reporters such as Amos live and work in the "Red Zone" -- meaning the real Iraq. These reporters are in daily contact, through their Iraqi staffs, with the nightmare the Iraqi people are experiencing. When their reporting contrasts with the more upbeat accounts coming out of the Green Zone, the reporters in the Red Zone generally have been right, for a simple reason: They are closer to the story.
Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times showed what you learn out in the Red Zone in stories Sunday about the spread of gruesome revenge killings: "By conservative counts, nearly 200 civilian men have been executed in the past two weeks and dumped on Baghdad's streets. Many have been hogtied. Some have had acid splashed on their faces. Others have been found without toes, fingers, eyes." Gettleman, who had been away from Iraq for more than a year, wrote that something fundamental had changed: The violence had "turned inward" into sectarian warfare.
A strong warning about the rise in sectarian violence came from my Post colleague Ellen Knickmeyer. She reported in February, after a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra was destroyed, that Shiite militiamen were brutally killing Sunnis. Her sources said Iraqi and international officials tallied more than a thousand bodies. Her reports were criticized by U.S. officials in the Green Zone, who said the number was far smaller. The dispute obscured the deeper truth that Knickmeyer was reporting: the sharp increase in brutal killings by Shiite death squads. Fortunately that point wasn't lost on U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has warned in recent days that America will not support an Iraqi government that doesn't crack down on the Shiite militias.
Western journalists in Baghdad depend increasingly on our Iraqi colleagues, who are some of the bravest reporters in the world. Several of the best Iraqi journalists have created their own blogs. In one, 24 Steps to Liberty, an Iraqi reporter described the living hell of Baghdad's al-Rabie Street on Sunday: "Driving in this street after six p.m. makes every thought of killing, kidnapping, insurgents, and everything bad . . . become present in your mind. That is what the Iraqis see every night."
Another brave Iraqi reporter, whose blog is Treasure of Baghdad, recounted this week a terrifying experience at his home when people opened fire nearby. "I first thought these were the 'men in black' breaking into the houses of my Sunni neighbors trying to kill them, then I thought these might be Sunni insurgent[s] trying to break into the houses of the few Shiite families that live in the same street." His father cocked his rifle to defend the family, but the gunmen went away.
American journalists report the successes of U.S. policy, and there have been some lately, at a level above the mean streets of Baghdad. Iraqi political leaders have been meeting to try to form a national unity government, and the Iraqi army is showing signs of becoming a better fighting force. But there are also some horrific stories: Time magazine published a disturbing account in its March 27 issue about how U.S. Marines are believed to have killed 15 Iraqi civilians in their homes in Haditha last November after a roadside bomb attack. This may prove a shocking tale when more details emerge about what happened, but it's a story that journalists must report.
Supporters of the Bush administration sometimes argue that journalists should report more good news. Certainly we need to tell the stories of the thousands of brave and decent Americans and Iraqis who are trying every day to make the country better. And if an Iraqi unity government can take hold and restore stability, there will be a stampede of reporters to cover this success. But a reporter's job is to tell the truth, even when it hurts. Americans should be grateful that reporters such as Jill Carroll are risking their lives to chronicle this agonizing story -- and tell Americans not what they want to hear, but what they need to know.
WaPo
H/T 24 Steps to Liberty
posted by madtom at 3:16 PM
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