Reporting From Iraq
rantingprofs.com
By Cori Dauber
Jackie Spinner, whose work I've mentioned here, is on her way out of Iraq, so she does an online chat for the Post. Some interesting insights into the way she viewed her work, and what did and didn't make it into her reports.
First, as discussed before, the Post like other outlets is using Iraqis as stringers to go where their Western reporters can't go:
We have stringers all over Iraq and rely on them to be our eyes and ears in places we can't get to. The level of access to the public has diminished greatly in the past nine months.
Think about this for a minute -- not fully crediting the work of stringers was what got Rick Bragg tossed from the New York Times. So if they're doing this, they'd better be putting the names (even if they're psuedonyms, for security's sake) on the articles.
Now think about this -- her claim is that they're now fully trained to Post standards.
They really are our eyes and ears. So we have can see and hear the real Iraq, which just have to do it through our stringers and our translators. These are people we have trained. They know how to do "Washington Post" journalism. And they bravely deliver it to us, day after day, in places where we cannot physically be. I owe them everything.
I wonder what kind of credentials it takes to get a job at the Post, and how long it takes, stateside, to get your stuff blended into critical stories like this.
Notice the kind of detail that always gets mentioned when reporters are asked directly. (She's asked if adults and children have different responses to American soldiers.)
I was in Fallujah two weeks ago and the soldiers were being mobbed by children, friendly, looking for candy and footballs that the Marines had been passing out. The adults were much more guarded. It was a fascinating sight to return to Fallujah after the battle and see children holding up their thumbs and shouting and waving.
Now, I've said all along that these guys do deserve respect for the physical courage required to do what they do, even if the final product isn't deserving of respect. And I also regularly shoot down some of the more, er, aggressive critiques of their work. One of the problems with personal attacks on the reporters is that it permits a high degree of self-pity.
I get a lot of hatemail, and it comes from all spectrums. When I write a story that some perceive as critical of the U.S. military, I get nailed from people accusing me of being anti-American. I think what these people don't get is that I am not for or against anything. I am in Iraq to find the truth and at great risk to myself and at great worry to my family. So when I go out and report a story, it's not tell a side or to make point, it's simply to tell a story. I think that is perhaps my greatest frustration. I know from talking to fellow journalists in Iraq that we don't feel we have the support of the American people. There are no yellow ribbons for us, and I'm not advocating that there should be. It's just an observation after months of sharing a war zone with soldiers and Iraqis.
These guys need to understand that they often don't have the support of the American people not because we want reporters to serve as nothing more than government stooges and mouthpieces, and not because any and all criticism of the military is out of bounds.
Instead it's because we aren't stupid, and we know when we're getting peddled low quality work and being told it means we're informed. If you can't leave the hotel, we can understand that. But then don't write the article as if you can make broad sweeping generalizations about what "the" Iraqis, for example, believe, when you know and we know you haven't the first clue. Write in some qualifiers, don't write in the omniscient first person, the God's eye view one would use to write a novel.
Don't pee on my shoe, as we say, and tell me it's raining.
Because, speaking for myself, I can tell the difference and that, not my belief that you're "antiAmerican" is why you've, in many instances, lost my support. |
