Arms and influence

The moral imperatives of war journalism

I've had the latest Rolling Stone article about Afghanistan on my "To Read" pile for a few days. Before I could get to it, however, I got distracted by the flurry of posts about the article.

The author, Nir Rosen, traveled with Taliban fighters to a meeting with a Taliban commander. While Rosen doesn't actually witness the Taliban fighting US, Afghan, or NATO troops, he very well could have--and in fact, set out with the intent of observing a Taliban attack, if the opportunity presented itself:

They have promised to take me to see the Taliban in action: going out on patrols, conducting attacks, adjudicating disputes and providing security against bandits and police.

Some bloggers, including Bing West, took exception with what Rosen did--loud, angry exception. And I largely agree with them.

During war, public information about the other side is critical. Citizens cannot judge the wisdom or stupidity of the war without knowing something about the adversary. Whether the reality of the enemy is better or worse than the caricature that emerges out of ignoramce, the important thing is, the caricature is wrong. It does not tell you what it's really going to take to defeat the adversary. Debates over the war then inevitably collapse into disagreements over the military actions we pursue, with practically no reference to the people who are their target, or the effect these operations have. Ultimately, this kind of one-sided discussion is not really about war at all, but some kind of fictional military engineering problem.

In fewer words, then, it's just important to recognize the importance of getting information about our adversaries. There's no question that, not only is that an important service that journalists can provide, but it's arguably their duty.

The real question, though, is how they go about that task. Interviewing a Taliban commander isn't wrong. Agreeing to accompany Taliban fighters during a mission to kill Afghan or Western soldiers is.

Instead of spilling a lot of my own words about this topic, I urge you to watch the second part of the "Under Orders, Under Fire" episode of Ethics In America. Both this series and The Constitution: A Delicate Balance were filmed in the 1980s. Prepare to be surprised by whom you'll see in these excellent discussions, what they say, and how well they say it.

After starting "Under Orders, Under Fire," you should first listen to the brief but illuminating discussion about torture in war. Then go to the second part, in which the panel wrestles with the problem of an American journalist traveling with enemy soldiers, just as Rosen did. The real kicker comes when a Marine colonel makes the rhetorical question: what happens when American soldiers are in a position to save endangered journalist?

If that doesn't paint a clear enough picture for you, watch this short video of a British journalist and British soldiers caught in a Taliban ambush. Next, imagine yourself as a journalist on the other side of this firefight. If you didn't have doubts whether you should be there...Well, you're a cold-hearted bastard, at the very least.

Bing West goes a little farther than necessary to make his point. Comparing the Taliban (whom I am not defending) to the Waffen SS just gives critics the opportunity to give less weight to the important part of his argument. You don't need "American moral lassitude" to explain one journalist who displayed faulty judgment.

I strongly recommend reading Robert Farley's analysis, which makes many excellent points that I don't need to repeat here. However, I'll make one last observation of my own. Rosen's article just isn't very good. He leaps to broad conclusions about the Taliban from encounters with a small group of them. Not only does that leave him open to the compound fallacy, but it's not impossible to imagine that some of the softer, nicer elements of Taliban life were staged for his benefit.

Even if you take everything he sees at face value, the narrative of the story is, "My wild, dangerous trip to see an ornery Taliban commander." His experience may add to our understanding of the war in Afghanistan, but it's too small for the general conclusions about the war that Rosen wants to make.

Jim Lehrer, bystander

Watching the presidential debate reminds us, yet again, how poorly mainstream journalists have fulfilled their public responsibilities:

• How long did Jim Lehrer prepare his questions? You and I, Dear Reader, could have developed the same back-of-the-envelope list in about 5 minutes.
• Does Jim Lehrer know what the word "moderate" means? It doesn''t mean letting the parties to the debate talk about whatever they want, for however long they want.
• Can Jim Lehrer phrase a question with any teeth? The closest he got was his question about how the financial crisis will affect the next President's options. Unfortunately, he phrased it so poorly that both candidates could, once again, say what they want.
• Will Jim Lehrer ever challenge anything either candidate says, when it may be factually incorrect? Lehrer said, to explain his weak-suck performance as moderator in the 2004 debates, that challenging a candidate is tantamount to "making myself part of the story," whatever that means. How bizarre is it for someone who reports on current affairs not to use that knowledge to keep candidates from misleading the American electorate?

When I took a journalism class in college, our instructor, Joe Bell, a long-time reporter for The Los Angeles Times, had one principle that wove throughout the entire course: "Ask the tough questions." That's about as far away as Jim Lehrer's "don't challenge candidates, or else someone might notice you" approach as you can get.

The "nice guy" defense

I've been waiting to see what The Daily Howler would say about Tim Russert's death. As usual, Bob Somerby's media critique hit home:

Based on what we saw first-hand, we would guess that Brother Russert really was the nicest guy in the world.

Sometimes, though, “nicest guys in the world” are the last to challenge conventional wisdom—even when it desperately needs to be challenged, examined, hollered about. In Tim’s case, we think he showed poor judgment in various instances over the years, as we’re all inclined to do. Chris Matthews touched on one possible error in judgment in his comments from Paris on Friday’s Countdown (text below). For once, we think Chris’ lack of impulse control served the public understanding—although he’s getting beaten up for his comment at various spots on the web.

Over the weekend, other members of the mainstream press corps did the thing that comes natural inside their group; they went on the air and told Group Tales, tales which reflected quite wondrously on Tim’s journalistic work—and, of course, by extension, most importantly, on them. Telling the truth is pretty much the last thing that enters these people’s heads. And so, they handed out novelized tales about Tim’s always brilliant work—failing to make the slightest attempt to be balanced, objective or truthful.

Highly-paid TV and print journalists like Russert had a job to do, since the 9/11 attacks: Don't let your emotions, or the raw emotions of the American public, cloud your judgment. Report on what is happening, not on what you wish is happening. Stay independent.

These journalists failed. Russert's heart attack does not change that fact. If Brit Hume were hit by a truck, or a 16-ton weight fell on Judith Miller, nothing would change about the history of the last several years, marked by the failure of the American press to do its job.

You can call me Al

After writing that last post, I realized that, if the press is having trouble keeping Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq straight, they might be having other problems distinguishing between things that have similar names. Perhaps we can help.

Question #1
Shown here are (1) an actual bear, and (2) the Chicago Bears. Show these pictures to a journalist--maybe someone you know, perhaps a member of your own family--to see if that member of the Fourth Estate can tell the difference.

Question #2
If they experience trouble, immediate attention may be required. Take the test to stage two, in which the journalist must tell the difference between (1) Prince Charles, monarch-in-waiting of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and (2) the cast of the sitcom Charles in Charge.

Question #3
Perhaps these examples don't hit close enough to home. Therefore, the acid test asks the journalist to distinguish among (1) a wolf, (2) the German blitzkrieg in World War II, and (3) Wolf Blitzer. This challenge is especially tricky, since it presents 50% more choices than the previous tests.

The painful truth
If the journalist fails any of these tests, you know for sure that he or she will have no chance whatsoever of telling the difference between (1) Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, and (2) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, former leader of Ansar al-Islam and founder of Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, a.k.a. "Al Qaeda in Iraq."

The journalists with this problem are suffering from a substantial handicap. After years of trying and failing, it's clear that they are being asked to do a job for which they are functionally crippled.

These journalists deserve our pity--and our help. "Lazy Reporter's Brain" is, like Turrett's Syndrome or chronic flatulence, no laughing matter.

We can only hope that, soon, we will find a cure. Until that happy day arrives, just be careful when the journalist you know says, "I hear Wolf is going to be at that dinner party--I can't wait to go!"

The fall of The New Republic

What the hell happened to The New Republic? Twenty years ago, it was a magazine full of clever, iconoclastic, and readable analysis. Today...Well, just listen to TNR editor-at-large Peter Beinart, interviewed by Bill Moyers in "Buying the War."

I had thought about writing a longer critique of TNR, whose political analysis has descended into profane silliness. However, you might hear all you need to hear straight from Beinart's lips. You'll see why a once-respectable journal of critical opinion has devolved so far, so fast. Beinart remains unapologetic that, because his lack of Middle East expertise, he credulously repeated the Administration's claims about Iraq.

Rule #8 of a sane world: People who don't know what they're talking about should be clearly identified as such.

During Operation DESERT STORM, I was a talking head. When Iraqi SCUDs were falling on Tel Aviv, I appeared on CNN. The anchorperson asked me, "Why aren't the Israelis using the PATRIOT missile batteries to shoot down the SCUDs?"

I paused before answering. I knew that the readiness of the PATRIOT crews was in question, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember the exact details. Rather than blurt out something that would later prove to be wrong, I said (to paraphrase myself, since I don't have a transcript), "I'm not sure. I just know that they're not ready yet."

By today's standards, I was a bad pundit. If I had blustered my way through that interview, nothing bad would have happened to me. For my career as a talking head, bravado was more important than accuracy. Uncertainty makes bad television, in today's degenerate form of broadcast journalism. Pundits are wrong all the time, but they keep getting invited back to speak to the electronic agora.

Perhaps the biggest story about the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the calamitous, borderline criminal failure of the American press.

Civil war mad-libs

Yesterday, I grumbled that American newspapers like the Washington Post cover the Iraq war from a purely American perspective. In other words, the subjects of these articles are American soldiers, American politicians and political appointees, or American problems. Unfortunately, winning any counterinsurgency war requires a deep understanding of the country where the civil war is taking place.

After I wrote that post, I realized that I left out an important qualification. American journalists often do write about the citizens of countries wracked by internal war. The content of these articles, while sympathetic to the subject, are largely useless.

It’s hard to speak of these articles in the plural, since they amount to re-wordings of the same story. Here is that Ur-article, presented in the “fill-in-the-blank” format that I can neither confirm nor deny reporters actually use:

___________ has lived in the village of ___________ for all [his/her] life. That was, until war came to the village. Today, ___________ lives in [a refugee camp/fear].

“I don’t know where I’ll go, or what I’ll do,” ______________ said, clutching his ___________, a treasured keepsake. “Nowhere is safe.”

___________ story is all too familiar, in this war that has claimed over ___________ lives. With the failure of negotiations between ___________ and ___________, there is no end to the violence in sight.

Still, ___________ clings to hope. “Every day I pray for peace,” [he/she] said. "It’s all I can do."

What’s wrong with that? At the very least, this kind of reporting draws attention to the conflicts themselves. Unfortunately, that’s usually where the information stops.

After arousing sympathy and horror, the next step should be a description of how these tragic circumstances came to be. Who’s fighting, and why? What is the current state of the war? How is the conflict likely to unfold? Is there anything the reader, or the reader’s elected officials, can do to nudge these events towards an end to the suffering of people like [fill in the blank]?

That’s why I spoke highly of Digital Diplomat’s post about the rivalry among Shi’ite factions in

Iraq, including SCIRI, the Army of the Mahdi, and the Shi’ite dominated government. It’s also why many foreign news sources do a better job of covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the mainstream American news outlets. It’s also why it’s worth reading blogs by the citizens of these countries (here's a sample list from Iraq), soldiers deployed to these war zones, or even the occasional Middle East specialist, such as the widely-cited Juan Cole.

No one deserves a Pulitzer for going to Iraq and pointing a camera at the victims of a car bomb attack. Real reporting means talking to the Iraqis, understanding the political forces propelling the war, and writing clear, accurate, and useful stories. Otherwise, journalists are behaving like besotted doctors who think their job is to describe the symptoms their patients are suffering, without explaining the possible sources of their ailments. (“Wow! Look at the lesions on that guy!”)