Security First, Journalism Second
An inside look at writing the news from Baghdad, from Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi. Job number one? Staying alive:
Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like beingİunder virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me toİthis job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet newİpeople in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason toİ and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and neverİ walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eatİin restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't lookİfor 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'tİspeak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about whatİpeople are saying, doing, feeling.İAnd can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so nearİour house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressingİconcern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay aliveİand make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am aİsecurity personnel first, a reporter second.
It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was itİ April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military?Was itİwhen Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgencyİbegan spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remainsİa disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.
Read the rest at the Romenesko link above.
Sounds like South Central.
Cridland at September 29, 2004 9:24 PM
Crid, babe --
I'm in the heart of Watts/Willowbrook right now, feet on the desk, listening to Coltrane live in Sweden. I don't imagine life in Baghdad is quite as sweet.
hugs and jugs,
Lena
Lena at September 30, 2004 3:22 PM