Everyone knows
that the Iraq war and its coverage continue to be a divisive issue for
Americans. From bumper stickers, flag colors, red vs blue news sources so you
don’t have to read anything too offensive to your opinion, the unity that
genuinely existed post 9/11 fell apart with the war in Iraq and has been
flowing like hot lava downhill ever since. Shall we say the mythmaking of the
Pentagon and White House was dispelled quicker this time than Vietnam due to
the internet and videos, or has the public become savvy/immunized to lying?
While the toxicity
builds around the legal and moral issue of Karl Rove’s role in this White
House, listen to the discord about what we do or should hear from the battlefield,
this time from those who write it.
PS Knight
Ridder has generally won praise for its’ reporting, especially compared to the
glossier stuff from the corporate media. KwC
Knight Ridder's Baghdad Chief Replies to Criticism From Back Home
Early this week, Mark Yost, an editorial
writer at Knight Ridder's St. Paul Pioneer Press, wrote a column that sharply
criticized Iraq war coverage as "bad" for focusing on the negative.
Today, another Knight Ridder writer who may actually know what's going on in
Iraq, penned a reply.
By (Editor) Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher, July 13, 2005
On Tuesday, Mark Yost, an editorial writer at the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote
a column that sharply criticized Iraq war coverage as "bad," for
focusing on the negative aspects when there's so much progress to report.
Yost, of course, is welcome to his opinion, but some of his colleagues in the
press quickly counter-attacked, in letters to Romenesko and others, pointing
out that, ironically, Iraq coverage by the company he works for, Knight Ridder,
had been hailed by many (including E&P) for often running a step or two
ahead of all others.
One
of those letters was written directly to Yost, by a colleague at the Pi-Press,
Chuck Laszewski. "With your column," he declared, "you have spat
on the copy of the brave men and women who are doing their best in terrible
conditions. More than 20 reporters have died in Iraq from around the world. You
have insulted them and demeaned them, and to a much lesser degree, demeaned the
reporters everywhere who have been threatened with bodily harm, who have been
screamed at, or denied public records, just because they wanted to present the
closest approximation to the truth they could. I am embarrassed to call you my
colleague."
Pretty strong stuff, but I wondered, in a note Tuesday to Knight Ridder's
Washington chief Clark Hoyt, if we would hear a defense from his estimable
Baghdad bureau, or what's left of it, following the death of one of its prize
reporters there last month.
The KR response arrived late Wednesday.
But first, a bit more from Mark Yost, writing from the air-conditoned splendor
of his office or home in leafy Minnesota.
"I know the reporting's bad because I know people in Iraq," he
revealed. "A Marine colonel buddy just finished a stint overseeing the
power grid. When's the last time you read a story about the progress being made
on the power grid? Or the new desalination plant that just came on-line, or the
school that just opened, or the Iraqi policeman who died doing something
heroic? No, to judge by the dispatches, all the Iraqis do is stand outside
markets and government buildings waiting to be blown up.
"I also get unfiltered news from Iraq through an e-mail network of military
friends who aren't so blinded by their own politics that they can't see the
real good we're doing there. ...Why isn't the focus of the story the fact that
14 of 18 Iraqi provinces are stable and the four that aren't are primarily home
to the genocidal gang of thugs who terrorized that country for 30 years? And
reporters wonder why they're despised."
Now here's the Knight Ridder reply, first from Hoyt, then Baghdad bureau chief
Hannah Allam, from a memo sent to KR editors.
***
>From Clark Hoyt:
It's astonishing that Mark Yost, from the distance and safety of St. Paul,
Minnesota, presumes to know what's going on in Iraq. He knows the reporting of
hundreds of brave journalists, presumably including his own Knight Ridder
colleagues Hannah Allam and Tom Lassetter, is bad because his Marine colonel
buddy tells him so.
Yost asks why you don't read about progress being made in the power grid, which
the colonel oversaw. Maybe it's because there is no progress. Iraqis currently
have electricity for an average of nine hours a day. A year ago, they averaged
10 hours of electricity. Iraq's oil production is still below pre-war levels.
The unemployment rate is between 30 and 40 percent. New cases of hepatitis have
doubled over the rate of 2002, largely because of problems with getting clean
drinking water and disposing of sewage.
The "unfiltered news" Yost gets from his military friends is in fact
filtered by their isolation in the Green Zone and on American military bases
from the Iraqi population, an isolation made necessary by the ferocity of the
insurgency. To say that isn't to argue that their perspective is invalid. It's
just limited and incomplete.
Knight Ridder's Baghdad bureau chief, Hannah Allam, has read Mark Yost's
column. Her response, from the front, says it far better than I could.
***
>From Hannah Allam:
It saddens me to read Mark Yost's editorial in the Pioneer Press, the Knight
Ridder paper that hired me as a rookie reporter and taught me valuable lessons
in life and journalism during the four years I spent there before heading to
Iraq.
I invite Mr. Yost to spend a week in our Baghdad bureau, where he can see our
Iraqi staff members' toothbrushes lined up in the bathroom because they have no
running water at home. I frequently find them camping out in the office
overnight because electricity is still only sporadic in their sweltering
neighborhoods, despite what I'm sure are the best-intentioned efforts of people
like his Marine buddy working on the electrical grid.
Mr. Yost could have come with me today as I visited one of my own military
buddies, who like most officers doesn't leave the protected Green Zone compound
except by helicopter or massive convoy. The Army official picked me up in his
air-conditioned Explorer, took me to Burger King for lunch and showed me photos
of the family he misses so terribly. The official is a great guy, and like so
many other soldiers, it's not politics that blind him from seeing the real
Iraq. The compound's maze of tall blast wall and miles of concertina wire obscure
the view, too.
Mr. Yost can listen to our bureau's morning planning meetings, where we
orchestrate a trip to buy bottled water (the tap water is contaminated, when it
works) as if we're plotting a military operation. I wonder whether he prefers
riding in the first car -- the most exposed to shrapnel and bullets -- or the
chase car, which is designed to act as a buffer between us and potential
kidnappers.
Perhaps Mr. Yost would be moved by our office's tribute wall to Yasser Salihee,
our brave and wonderful colleague, who at age 30 joined the ranks of Iraqi
civilians shot to death by American soldiers. Mr. Yost would have appreciated
one of Yasser's last stories -- a rare good-news piece about humanitarian aid
reaching the holy city of Najaf.
Mr. Yost's contention that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces are stable is pure
fantasy. On his visit to Baghdhad, he can check that by chatting with our
resident British security consultant, who every day receives a
province-by-province breakdown of the roadside bombs, ambushes, assassinations
and other violence throughout the country.
If Baghdad is too far for Mr. Yost to travel (and I don't blame him, given the
treacherous airport road to reach our fortress-like hotel), why not just head
to Oklahoma? There, he can meet my former Iraqi translator, Ban Adil, and her
young son. They're rebuilding their lives under political asylum after
insurgents in Baghdad followed Ban's family home one night and gunned down her
4-year-old daughter, her husband and her elderly mother in law.
Freshly painted schools and a new desalination plant might add up to
"mission accomplished" for some people. Too bad Ban's daughter never
got to enjoy those fruits of her liberation.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000978858
