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October 8, 2004
Authorized Knower: Farnaz Fassihi's Accidental Baghdad Dispatch"The e-mail, which has no title, conveyed something elusive: not 'new' information about Iraq (there was none) or a new emotion, but a sense of the situation there that had not come through in other kinds of accounts, at least those by journalists."“Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference,” she wrote. “Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons.” Like many others who have noted it, I find fascinating the tale of the wayward e-mail written by Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi, 31, who has been stationed in Baghdad. It was supposed to go to a circle of friends, but then got forwarded and forwarded until it reached the Web (here, among other places), and became what it was never intended to be— a public document. The fact that she wrote it became an item of news, and there were suggestions she might be taken off the beat as a result. The e-mail is about 1,400 words— the length of two op ed pieces. Part of it is Fassihi telling her friends what life is like for her: I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people’s homes and never walk in the streets. I can’t go grocery shopping any more, can’t eat in restaurants, can’t strike a conversation with strangers, can’t look for stories, can’t drive in any thing but a full armored car, can’t go to scenes of breaking news stories, can’t be stuck in traffic, can’t speak English outside, can’t take a road trip… The other part of it is her assessment of where the struggle stands: One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it’s hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can’t be put back into a bottle. Neither can Fasssihi’s note be put back into her network. “This was a private correspondence that has been thrust into the public domain without my consent,” she wrote to Editor and Publisher. That’s true and one must treat her as entirely blameless. But whereas we often feel guilty reading someone’s private correspondence when it becomes public (while simultaneously enjoying what was not intended to be ours) I doubt many readers have that half-guilty reaction to this particular e-mail— at least the portions of it we have seen that are about Iraq. Yes, it’s a personal account, and personal property, but there’s no “personal” stuff in it. It’s not intimate speech. It’s really journalism, an eyewitness report, giving impressions and conclusions about the struggle to prevail in Iraq. Not intended for the public, but that’s different from being unfit for public consumption. There are millions of e-mails from Iraq about conditions in country. No one would be talking about this one but for two things: it was the work of a correspondent for the Journal, and it was brilliantly expressive in its quiet, detailed way. The e-mail, which has no title, conveyed something elusive: not “new” information about Iraq (there was none) or a new emotion, but a sense of the situation there that had not come through in other kinds of accounts, at least those by journalists.” (Bloggers from Iraq are another story.) Her e-mail report can have references to what a friend of hers saw on a drive through Sadr City. Her Wall Street Journal report cannot. The “authorized knowers” in her Journal reporting tend to be experts and authorities, often government officials, or they are participants in events, people close to the action. Fassihi was telling friends what she felt she knew. In her email she herself is the authorized knower, and she speaks directly, not through sources and quotes. As the Houston Chronicle put it in an editorial, “Though the missive apparently does not contradict her reportage, it is blunt, bleak and opinionated in a way that mainstream coverage generally avoids.” Blunt, bleak and opinonated… said the Chronicle. The advantages Fassihi’s e-mail had were the same advantages bloggers have, including J-bloggers like Chris Allbritton. They can testify in a way that mainstream coverage generally avoids. Fassihi, it seems, was blogging without having an actual weblog. “Exactly what mistake did Farnaz Fassihi make?” asked Matt Mendelsohn at Romenesko’s Letters (Oct. 5) “Other than the issue of Blogging As Capital Offense, a topic for Human Resources to discuss at a later date, Fassihi simply told the truth.” She told the truth, yes. Simply? Well… When shared among her friends; or even when it had spread to additional addresses in a second ring—friends of friends—the account communicates one way. Farnaz, a person you know or know about, is in Iraq, on assignment. She sends you her regards and also this note about conditions there. But this is not how the e-mail works by the tenth or eleventh ring outward from the author, after it had “jumped into the public consciousness through the power of the FWD button,” as Tom Scocca of the New York Observer put it. Other things come into play then. It gets read by a public code governing trust in the news media, and there we find trouble. This code is the scene of cultural conflict and political fighting. Tim Rutten, media writer at the Los Angeles Times, thinks the backdrop to the wayward e-mail is the war against Big Media, which I wrote about in my last post. “At the core of the relentless partisan assault on the American news media’s tradition that good journalism can and should be unbiased, is a campaign to obliterate the distinction between the public and the private,” Rutten writes. “The notion here is that because journalists, like other human beings, have thoughts and opinions about the world around them, those sentiments must ultimately contaminate their journalism.” Rutten objects to that “must.” He thinks it’s false. Training, discipline, experience, conscience, and pride still make an unbiased account possible in professional journalism. The private does not have to affect the public, he believes. Contamination of news accounts by personal preferences and opinions can be prevented. Good journalists know how it’s done and Fassihi is one. As Rutten wrote, “no one has questioned the content of Fassihi’s reporting nor alleged that it has been in any way biased.” Her private opinions are what they are. But those views are irrelevant to her reporting because that is the character test for an international correspondent working at the Wall Street Journal. Paul Steiger, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, gave a statement about the e-mail. What did it address? Possible contamination. A breach between public and private. Steiger’s assurances were these: “Ms. Fassihi’s private opinions have in no way distorted her coverage, which has been a model of intelligent and courageous reporting, and scrupulous accuracy and fairness.” It’s a remarkable thing, this statement, remarkable too that it was termed supportive of Fassihi by David Folkenflik in the Baltimore Sun. First, there’s nothing “private” about her descriptions. “Fact for fact,” said the Houston Chronicle, “Fassihi’s e-mail offers little that can’t be found in published accounts.” What has made it dart from Web site to Web site is the contrast of unvarnished personal expression with Fassihi’s status as reporter for an establishment newspaper. What has made the piece resonate is that its voice was not meant for the public. I disagree with the drift of this, suggesting an illicit thrill. What makes the piece resonate (for some of us) is the simple question: why can’t this be the journalism, this testifying e-mail? Why can’t reporters on the ground occasionally speak to the “public” like this one occasionally spoke to her friends? It’s inaccurate of Paul Steiger, her boss, to call the conclusions she reached by being there, reporting day-after-day on a changing Iraq, her “private opinions.” On the page, they have far more authority than that. His phrasing is weird, and others heard it: Her private opinions? She’s the Baghdad correspondent, for goodness sake. The Wall Street Journal didn’t send a laptop or an android to Iraq, they sent a human being. A human being whose particular job happens to be making skilled observations of ongoing news events. Fassihi’s mistake, if you could call it that, was not doing a better job of getting those observations, intended only for for friends and family, onto the pages of The Wall Street Journal. That’s Matt Mendelsohn again in his letter to Romenesko. But if you think there’s a war going on against the media (which really means that some critics have joined in a campaign to discredit Big Media that resembles other formations in the culture war) then you have to assume any opportunity to cast doubt on a reporter’s objectivity will, in fact, be taken up— somewhere. This was one: The Accidental Baghdad Dispatch. When Fassihi’s note became public, Steiger “protected” her from anticipated snipers in the bias wars. Getting him to anticipate this way is half the battle. “Ms. Fassihi’s private opinions have in no way distorted her coverage….” Hone in on what he’s clearing her of, and why, and you can hear what the war is doing to journalism. And remember: this is before any charges were filed or suspicions raised about her reporting in the Journal. Rutten comments: Still, it’s impossible to come away from all this without thinking that, like so many American journalists and news organizations, the Journal and its staff are feeling around for what used to be familiar boundaries, wondering whether they’re still there and — if so — precisely where. Don’t attack us, these were just her private opinions is a case of that— feeling around for the right defense. “Letter from our correspondent…” is one of the oldest and most reliable forms there is for receiving intelligence from abroad. (And that is what the wayward e-mail contained: not information, not “opinion,” but high-quality intelligence from Iraq.) Correspondents have been doing it that way for centuries. Now with the Net that ancient spirit has come back into journalism— accidentally in the case of Farnaz Fassihi’s e-mail, which was like a blog post collecting hits. Except it came around to hit you, rather than you coming ‘round to it. Here’s what I think: Who is an authorized knower? has been thrown into far greater doubt, and this is confusing for members of the press because the doubts have now reached them— and their business. After Matter: Notes, reactions and links… Now up at PressThink: Agnew with TV Stations: Sinclair Broadcasting Takes On John Kerry and The Liberal Media. Here’s a one-hour NPR program, On Point (Oct. 14, 2004), with correspondents from Baghdad talking about Fassihi’s email and what it’s like to report from Iraq. Plus, I provide some commentary at the end. Listen here. Dexter Filkins, New York Times correspondent in Baghdad: Get Me Rewrite. Now. Bullets Are Flying. It was no small surprise, then, to witness the reaction to an e-mail message written by Farnaz Fassihi, a reporter in Iraq for The Wall Street Journal, that was intended to be a private letter to friends but made its way to the Internet and a mass audience. Any number of Ms. Fassihi’s newspaper stories have described in detail the chaotic and uncertain state into which this country has fallen. Yet her description of her own working conditions, of the shrunken and dangerous world in which she now operates, shocked many people. Click here for a Technorati search showing blogs that have discussed Fassihi’s email. Greg Mitchell in Editor & Publisher: After her e-mail surfaced, Steiger stated that, as far as he was concerned, her personal opinions had not gotten in the way of her very fair and accurate reporting from Iraq. Why these things become sensations… Salon’s managing editor Scott Rosenberg in comments: The whole affair gives me a sense of deja vu because we ran this drill 18 months ago when Laurie Garrett’s e-mail about the Davos conference made the rounds. Similar situation: Well-placed and -regarded reporter’s private e-mail becomes a pass-along sensation. My take on Garrett’s tale back then, I think, applies to the Journal reporter’s saga: Of course the e-mail is journalism. (“Letter from Baghdad”!) These things become sensations because they confirm people’s sense “that the ‘real story’ of our times is the one that reporters tell each other over beers, and in for-private-distribution-only e-mails, rather than the one they tell in their formal stories.” The unvarnished e-mail is not just a better read than so much conventional copy — it gives people a behind-the-curtains feeling that they love. I have to say I find entirely disappointing this piece on the ethics of the episode by Poynter’s Aly Colón. (“Some journalists say, while others…”) But he does ask one profound question: can a journalist ever be too truthful? Private and Public: What Journalists Reveal About Themselves.
Posted by Jay Rosen at October 8, 2004 5:25 PM
Comments
Two things here: would there be all this buzz if the email was positive and optimistic? Also, why hasn't more been made of the fact that reporters are hunkered down in their hotels (why are war correspondents who are afraid of violence sent to cover a war?) and cannot possible give a realistic view of what is going on in Iraq? We are supposed to believe they are giving us "news" when they admit they don't leave their rooms? How is this helping citizens learn about the war in Iraq? I guess like the sainted Adam Nagourney, as long as you are in the general vicinity or are at least watching on TV, your views should appear in major news outlets and be greeted by loud hosannahs and be considered "truth-telling". Yeah, right. Posted by: paladin at October 8, 2004 6:03 PM | Permalink I think the letter is a great example of journalism. I wish we had more like it - increasingly, we will. "If you think there is war going on against the media" This statement brought to mind Martin Luther and his thesis. Was he declaring war on the Catholic Church? No. He was calling for its reformation. However, some of the German princes who adopted Luther's banner did so to wage war on the Church and their neighbors. Moreover, some in the Church saw a call to reform (and/or the actual war launched by some princes) as a declaration of war and declared war right back. Decent analogy or not? Posted by: Ernest Miller at October 8, 2004 6:21 PM | Permalink Jay asks why can't this be the journalism That wouldn't be my question. Mine is "Where can this be journalism?" Compared to a published article, an email deserves to be treated differently. Hell, a comment to a blog deserves to be treated differently than a full posting. One is measured, the other meanders. Our 94-year old editor passed on, but his case is instructive. He was a marvellous storyteller, but his typewriter was his truth machine. One is measured. One is not. I valued them both, but weighed them accordingly. That said, even my "Where can this be journalism?" isn't the best way to get value from her email. To me, the reaction to Farnaz Fassihi's email shows how tightly wound our interconnected world is. It shows that every remark is either a set-up waiting for a takedown or an instrument to be used to takedown someone else. As knotted as we are, journalism isn't at fault. It simply provides one connection. We are knotted up in our heads with little tolerance for differences that add more perspective to one's map of reality. I'll take every opportunity I can get. Cue the Bard! "The fault, Horatio, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." Here's what I think: Who is an authorized knower? has been thrown into far greater doubt, and it's confusing for members of the press because the doubts have now reached them and their business. According to This Reporter: Sources and Accountability (UPDATE) Reporters strive, as their careers advance, to write with more authority, meaning to report and write stories that convey solidity, depth and knowledge in contrast to the "according to" convention taught in basic reporting classes. Yet, even though good reporters become more knowledgeable in their fields, the forms of journalism discourage overt expression of that knowledge. Posted by: Tim at October 8, 2004 7:24 PM | Permalink Who are the Orwellians? Posted by: Withheld at October 8, 2004 7:44 PM | Permalink Why doesn't this make the paper and news stories do? Because this is an analysis piece by a journalist whose knowledge of history, experience in nation-building and familiarity with war-torn nations doesn't give her the necessary level of expertise to say with authority "One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. ..." I found Farnaz Fassihi's compelling as it captured the pathos of the times. It communicates the misery of the moment. But this shouldn't appear on the front page because she is but a witness without the historical context experts and other more-experienced individuals can place these moments. It has been this miserable in Cambodia, in Germany, in Russia and in East Timor, yet they have all advanced. Farnaz Fassihi may be right. But she is a reporter, not a judge. Posted by: Just a thought at October 8, 2004 8:28 PM | Permalink "Who are the Orwellians?" Oh they'll be in here in just a moment, blathering about how the WSJ having discovered it has a liberal in its midst, should fire Fassihi. You can't allow truth to get in the way of propaganda. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at October 8, 2004 8:56 PM | Permalink I think "just a thought" has it right. Let's use a science analogy again - in science the M.O. is that you don't publish what you think is true, you publish what you've rigorously tested and found via statistical analysis that the probability to have gotten your result by chance is less than 5%. It's a harsh criterion - there's a lot of info in the shades of gray that _don't_ meet that stringency - but it makes judging the study - and thus contributing to the progress of science - easier. Journalism - at least the platonic ideal of journalism - has the same rigor. It means they won't publish a lot of useful info. It also means they won't publish a lot of noise. disclaimer - I've been out of science for a _long_ time. Things may have changed. Posted by: Anna at October 8, 2004 9:21 PM | Permalink The 64k question is, in today's world - with the tools we have today, that we didn't have back then - is there a way we can restructure the rules (the filter for extracting signal while excluding noise) for what constitutes "statistically significant" data (in journalism as in science) so as to wring more "signal" out of the data that previously would have been inadmissible? Posted by: Anna at October 8, 2004 9:27 PM | Permalink Good piece, Jay. The whole affair gives me a sense of deja vu because we ran this drill 18 months ago when Laurie Garrett's e-mail about the Davos conference made the rounds. Similar situation: Well-placed and -regarded reporter's private e-mail becomes a pass-along sensation. My take on Garrett's tale back then, I think, applies to the Journal reporter's saga: Of course the e-mail is journalism. ("Letter from Baghdad"!) These things become sensations because they confirm people's sense "that the 'real story' of our times is the one that reporters tell each other over beers, and in for-private-distribution-only e-mails, rather than the one they tell in their formal stories." The unvarnished e-mail is not just a better read than so much conventional copy -- it gives people a behind-the-curtains feeling that they love. Posted by: Scott Rosenberg at October 9, 2004 12:38 AM | Permalink I read Fassihi's email and was struck by the power it contained. I'm therefore very disappointed in Aly Colon's reaction to it. She is not reporting opinion but fact. Her observations were the purest form of reporting. And as for "contaminating her reporting. I listen to Diane Rehm, etc. regularly. I regularly hear national and regional reporters commenting on stories that they report. The folks at NPR - my favorite news outlet - have taken this form or interpretative reporting to a new level. So why should the Wall Street Journal be concerned that Farhissi will not be able to report fairly and objectively when the circumstances in Iraq change? If, in fact they do? Posted by: Afi Scruggs at October 9, 2004 1:13 AM | Permalink I thought we had come a way from the cliche of the authoritative eyewitness report. The somewhat romantic notion of one lone reporter giving you a picture of an entire country based on his solitary ramblings. Fassihi's report is interesting and valuable but only as a single data point. And it is less valuable than the eyewitness accounts of Iraqi citizens, who can and do blog their observations about what life is like now, in the messy aftermath of the removal of totalitarian rule. It is considerably less valuable given that Fassihi paints her daily life in Baghdad (which is only one portion of the country) as "virtually house arrest". Fassihi's email merits publication, but only as one of many other accounts (many of which will also be grim) that help us capture a broader perspective, to see the forest *and* the trees (one of the better accounts is Healing Iraq). The first illusion we have to get past is that any single account represents the whole story. An issue with a personal account like Fassihi's is that the reporter then becomes as much an issue as the facts (or "facts") being reported, which is something news organizations seem particularly sensitive about (they often seem to want "ace reporters" that give them the benefits of a brand name yet who are immune to criticism). Have we already forgotten about Robert Fisk's completely ridiculous dispatches from Iraq? Peter Arnett's self-promoting misadventures? One can see why this sort of thing makes news orgs nervous. Not to mention that we keep hearing that what makes journalists so respectable, as opposed to the unwashed blogging swine, is that they have Editors! and Standards! and Methods! which aren't much in evidence in Fassihi's email. David Ehrenstein's comments unconsciously demonstrate where that kind of branding can lead. I have my fair and accurate reporters and you have your "Orwellian" shills. Isn't Fassihi's letter on the same journalistic level as a soldier's letter or an Iraqi's? All valuable journalism. All important personal accounts of life in Iraq. Each imbued with the same emotional impact for a citizenry anxious and thirsty for information about what's happening and what it is like "over there". Is the issue with Fassihi's letter the news organization's response, much like our uneasiness with the censoring or publishing of a soldier's letter to home, and how much weight we should give his letter about the conduct and progress of the war? Posted by: Tim at October 9, 2004 12:59 PM | Permalink Precisely, Tim. It's one piece of straightforward first-person reportorial observation -- not an ultimate statement about anything. That would require a lengthy article that I hope she'll one day get a chance to write. And there's nothing "unconscious" about my post Brian. So nice to see you recognize yourself in it though I never mentioned you by name. Posted by: David Ehrenstein at October 9, 2004 1:24 PM | Permalink Another example of the harmful side-effects of the odious doctrine of objective journalism.. Posted by: John Smith at October 9, 2004 5:45 PM | Permalink Time for Journalists to Hold Their Own Accountable I'm waiting for journalists to apply the same level of scrutiny to themselves that they apply to other industries. At what point do we declare a systemic failure and begin looking for the weak links in a profession that is critical to the survival of democracy? When do we stop treating the revelations as unrelated episodes, instead of symptoms of a larger cancer? Posted by: Tim at October 9, 2004 6:41 PM | Permalink If Fassihi's email challenges her WSJ reporting... isn't this AP quote "A final report from the chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq concluded that Saddam Hussein had no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, had no programs to make either them or nuclear bombs, and had little ability - or immediate plans - to revive those programs.challenged by Key FIndings in the actual report itself: "Saddam Hussayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability ti reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.If email and blogs on the internet have done one thing, they have pointed out how important it is that people use many sources before engaging in decision making. ---- When are media and political players going to appreciate that an internet driven cataclysmic change has occurred:
David, Until you learn to use words like "Orwellian" properly--as opposed to deploying them as silly partisan clubs to bash people with--I'm afraid I can't take you or your accusations very seriously. I would ask what about my comments here you find "Orwellian" but I fear the response would simply be more drivel. Excuse me please, Either I am psychotic, or a post I left this morning has been deleted...;-D In answer to the question, can a journalist be too truthful, obviously the answer is yes although I have never claimed what I did was Pure Journalism, of course. Now my question. What gives, please? You force me into the role of cop. I hate it. One of the reasons I hate it is this demand that I explain my reasons for deleting a post to the person who was unreasoning enough to write it. I don't have to explain my reasons. Please go elsewhere. And when you get there you can denounce Rosen as a censor and hypocrite who won't even explain himself. Goodbye. Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 10, 2004 1:52 PM | Permalink Is it heresy to say that a journalist can be too truthful? Surely that is worth a nuanced consideration. Will this one be deleted too? What's up here? Posted by: bc, jd at October 10, 2004 5:26 PM | Permalink It is not heresy and you won't be deleted for saying it. Posts are deleted very rarely. Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 10, 2004 5:56 PM | Permalink I think the power of "I" is the simple explanation, Jay. The injection of the human voice. Posted by: praktike at October 11, 2004 4:01 PM | Permalink Isn't the Farnaz Fahissi story a perfect little parable of the "transformation" we've been talking about for a year now. The embedded institutional press has so hog-tied itself with rules, "objectivity," fear, fear-and-balance, officialisms, sugar-coating, euphemism and all the rest that it's incapable of telling us the truth before our eyes. Yet on the Internet, including email, where prose style and writerly observation all count forcefully, and where the "authenticity" test is more important than any other, great reporting can travel like the wind. I'm proud of the WSJ editors for standing by Ms. Fahissi: it so obvious she's a great reporter. But it was in the email home to family that she told the real story--which might not have fit the WSJ format. It's a problem with the format not with her account. As I understand it, one of the people she sent her letter to was Andrew Rosenthal of the NYT, who sent it to his personal list, and it spread like a virus. I'd want to ask Andy Rosenthal: why did you forward it to your email list, not clear a space immediately on the Times Op-ed page--ideally in place of the daily disinformation by the likes of Friedman, Safire and Brooks? It would seem that Andy Rosenthal felt the power and, dare we say, truth of Fahissi's words immediately--but in the corrupted Orwellian journalism of our time, power and truth did not make it "fit to print" in our most important paper. Coming so soon after the Dan Rather melt-down, this is a poignant tale of this very moment on the cusp of a great change in media. But it's also just another instance of the great old definition of the newspaper editor's job: to separate the wheat from the chaff, and publish the chaff. Honor, admiration and thanks to Farnaz Fahissi. Chris Lydon Posted by: Chris Lydon at October 11, 2004 5:24 PM | Permalink The simple truth is that there is very little hard news being reported about the situation in Iraq beyond bare statistics of who's battling whom where. One of the key points in Fassihi's communique relates to how the degraded security for journalists in Iraq affects their ability to gather news, both good and bad. If objective journalism is to exist, journalists can only rely upon verifiable sources, figures, and facts. If it's too dangerous for reporters to do their job, they'll have to stick with the sources they have available to them, which perforce obligates them to spend the bulk of their time talking to authorities and experts rather than people who are just trying to live. The authorities and the experts have their own agendas and have shown no compunction about spinning correspondents mercilessly since before the war even began. Fassihi's e-mail seems so revelatory precisely because it's not held to the same standards as print journalism; many of us "know" the situation in Iraq is worse (or at least more complicated) than the media are reporting, and her message acts as confirmation -- Rosenberg's comment about the frisson of being behind the scenes or given access to forbidden knowledge is dead-on. To people who don't think the situation in Iraq is so bad, Fassihi's e-mail is threatening for the exact same reason, or at least its obverse: what she's saying is only one woman's perspective, it's not an authorized, validated source. I think "objective journalism" has been a chimeric mirage which has done a lot of damage to American journalism, and the situation in Iraq is a perfect example of why: it's too dangerous for reporters to go out and gather background on a lot of potentially useful and dramatic stories (and I'm sorry, it's unreasonable to expect journalists to wantonly risk their lives in a situation as chaotic and volatile -- and dangerous -- as Iraq is right now), so those stories are left unreported. Even when there's a lot of anecdotal evidence, it's left unreported (even with disclaimers that it is, in fact, anecdotal), because it can't be confirmed as "fact", and facts are notoriously thin on the ground in today's Iraq. Stories can survive when they're moved over to the editorial pages, but their impact is dramatically lessened then because they become fodder for opinion wars. Anecdotal truth is less valuable than "facts", but it's not the same as pure opinion, either. There has to be a better way to cover tumultuous and hazardous situations than this, particularly when the situation is as important as Iraq is. ... many of us "know" the situation in Iraq is worse (or at least more complicated) than the media are reporting ... I had two reactions when I read that. "Yes." and "No, you don't know." Yes, Iraq is certainly more complicated than the media are reporting because of the reductivist nature and structural bias of the media. No, you don't know that the situation is worse, or better, or in what way, than the reporting. In fact, one day it may be worse and the next day better. But the narrative bias doesn't really allow the reporting to reflect that dynamic and the bad news bias "makes the world look like a more dangerous place than it really is. Plus, this bias makes politicians look far more crooked than they really are." So when you say you "know", you really are saying you're biased to believe the bad news despite the years of experience of doom and gloom in the media. Afghanistan might be an example of things are not as bad as reported. I also wonder if Iraq was really a better place when you could safely report all the news Saddam deemed fit to print: The News We Kept to Ourselves. Posted by: Tim at October 12, 2004 8:34 PM | Permalink IWPR's Iraqi Press Monitor is a daily survey of the main stories in Iraq's newspapers. It features the top 7 stories of the day, along with a political cartoon. Posted by: Tim at October 12, 2004 8:46 PM | Permalink After reading this email, I sat troubled in the midst of my youngest brother graduating next month from boot camp and how I am going to cast my vote in the upcoming election. Wondering, just what to do. What can I do? Thinking about what this reporter wrote, I sent the email to my mother to get her perspective. Just before the Shah was overthrown, I lived in Iran with my parents and my little brother. Although I was very young, I still have distinct To this day, I still hold an deep, unpenetrable love for the Persian people. I would love nothing more to travel back to Shiraz, the most This is the middle east that I remember. This is the middle east that I hope, truly in my heart, exists on a good day and that will on day be I hope that this email can get back to her. I want her to read this, so she can see how a young mother, with two very young children lived in I would like to know what she is committed to. I am not sure how you can make a stand for something under a self imposed house arrest. I choose Freedom. Posted by: Aimee at October 21, 2004 5:37 PM | Permalink Letter from my Mother in response to reading the letter from the Wall Street Journal Reporter I read the letter AND AM NOW EATING CHOCOLTE TO MAKE MY HEAD AND STOMACH STOP HURTING. The reporter is upset The letter you have sent me sounds so very familiar to me. In Iran, the shops would close and I would have to negotiate with mullahs to get so quickly and had to leave your Daddy behind. Things were bad, and then they got worse. Much worse. Many Iranians wanted to change their government, to depose the Shah. Not all of theim followed the fundamentalists. A secular government reading the whining of a guy in Bagdad who is complaining that war is not clean or easy or bloodless, why not ask Iraqis what they think. I do, every day. Here are some sites I go to regularly. If you want more, I have them. Don't let your heart be troubled, Aimee. There are a lot of brave people who understand what is going on. And also understand that we don't says "Hey Kids, it's Mike the Seal." Remember what Grandma said about the early days of WWII. She said that is was hard to know what to do, that you couldn't make any plans Right now, we are probably facing one of the biggest decisions of our lives. Do we continue to fight, or do we stop fighting and hope things and your brothers, and sister, and cousins, and aunts and uncles and friends and acquaintences and total strangers free to choose how Remember what I taught you guys about insolvable problems? Problems become unsolvable because no one chose to solve the problem when it was still small and could be solved reasonably, although it might take a lot of work or might involve offending someone. We are in a situation like that right now. Before 9/11, the problem of terrorism was getting harder to solve. We didn't even recognize its importance, much less want Posted by: Aimee at October 21, 2004 5:39 PM | Permalink |
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