December 05, 2007
Baghdad Fabulists, Left and Right
*This post was also included on the Ethical Blogger Project's blog, a project I have been working on as part of the Global Media Project at Watson and with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, Demos--The Think Tank for Everyday Democracy, New York University's Center for Global Affairs, and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University.
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In August, Slate.com covered the conservative mil- and political bloggers' outrage by the possibility that Army private Scott Beauchamp, who had been sending dispatches to the New Republic, had actually fabricated his horrific and vivid accounts of life as a soldier in Iraq. Since then, Scott has supposedly recanted his statements; then not recanted; then admitted to simply wanting to 'use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemingway'. Since then the New Republic has come under intense scrutiny from conservative bloggers, calling a clear violation of ethical reporting of the war; how could a publication with the credibility such as TNR fail to do an adequate fact-check before publishing Beauchamp's dispatches? With multiple accusations of censorship, editor Franklin Foer recently published a 14-page long explanation of the events as understood by those involved at TNR (including, somewhat famously, Beauchamp's wife):
In the New Republic case, Foer acknowledged a key "mistake" in checking on whether Beauchamp lied or exaggerated in writing that U.S. soldiers had made fun of a disfigured woman, run over dogs for sport and played with an Iraqi child's skeletal remains. Foer said Beauchamp's wife, Elspeth Reeve, then a researcher at the magazine, was assigned "a large role" in checking the story. While Reeve acted in good faith, he said, "there was a clear conflict of interest."Ultimately, TNR concludes with the following:
When I [Foer] last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.After going through such intense public (and online) criticism, TNR may have just had its day: reports are coming in that the same thing is happening over at the National Review Online. The NRO's editor Kathryn Jean Lopez is declaring that this is hardly the same situation as TNR's case of the 'Baghdad Fabulist'. Though the story over at NRO seems yet to be over (despite Lopez's claims), one uncomfortable admission from Lopez seems to be making some waves in the blogging community:
As one of our sources put it: “The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.” While Smith vouches for his sources, we cannot independently verify what they told him. That’s why we’re revisiting the posts in question and warning readers to take them with a grain of salt.Yikes! Is how they write it over at New York Magazine's Daily Intelligencer. And Jeff Bercovici over at Portfolio also seems to find this defense troubling, if not altogether racist:
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If Smith was too trusting of his sources, that is a journalistic faux pas of an entirely different sort. It does not, contrary to some bloggers’ claims, make him a fabulist.
So that's what happened! Here's Smith, doing his job like a good reporter, when along come those Arabs with their "Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate" and trip him up. Gotcha. If only he'd remembered this, NRO-approved simple rule of thumb: Unlike everybody else, Arabs lie!
Oh, and as for that "doing his job" part, that's only true if you define his job as "sneaking into Hezbollah bases and stealing their property, thereby endangering all Western reporters in the region."
I'm curious to know what will happen with this particular case with the NRO, post-TNR debacle. For all of Beauchamp's horrific statements with regard to what he saw and did, TNR initially granted him the freedom to say what he wanted to say without casting judgment upon the content of his own views or stories. But with the NRO, it seems as if the support for Smith goes beyond what TNR did for Beauchamp, venturing into a sticky territory lined with institutionally-based racism. Given conservative bloggers backlash at TNR, I'll be interested to see how leftist bloggers respond to the NRO, for when asked by the New York Times if he was experiencing any joy over the NRO's own troubles, Foer had responded: "I have a feeling of how difficult this situation must be for them, and I wish them luck in resolving it."
Posted by Christina Kim at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 24, 2007
Press from the conference...
Thought these links would be useful to see other press, blog, etc. coverage/observations from the weekend:
From the Brown Daily Herald: Bloggers, soldiers recount Iraq's front lines
The Providence Journal: Media feeds disconnect over Iraq
From SFC Toby Nunn, one of the conference participants and currently in Iraq: I Do it so can you!
From Milblogging.com: Milbloggers in the News: Bloggers, soldiers recount Iraq's front lines
From Fairer Globalization, a blog run out of the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs:
Blogging from the Battlefield: "Front Line, First Person"
Putting the "We" in "We Are at War"
Getting the Stories Out: Who's Betraying Whom?
Posted by Christina Kim at 02:49 PM | TrackBack (0)
October 23, 2007
Convergences
so, this past weekend, Watson played host to a conference focusing on soldier voices coming from Iraq (and Afghanistan, a bit, as well): Front Line, First Person: Iraq War Stories. it was organized with the help of the Watson Institute's Global Media Project, Brown University's Nonfiction Writing Program and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.
it doesn't go without saying that you take one look at the list and wonder what kind of dialogue it's going to be--veterans and other members of the military, journalists, filmmakers, professors, students (at a supposedly left-leaning campus). it's a bevy of opinionated people and you're sticking them in a small room for two really intense and jam-packed days of conversation and presentations. something is bound to happen. I want to offer my comments and observations from this weekend with the caveat to the reader that I'm still trying to sort out my own thoughts and that, in a manner of speaking, the dust has yet to settle.
Friday commenced without too much fuss--Joukowsky was filled to the brim with plenty of spillover into the media space down the hall, where they were simulcasting the conference. the juxtaposition of the two soldiers in the first panel was really interesting. not only were they put on opposite ends of the table, but their very presence, styles of speaking, reactions to questions and comments were starkly contrasting. where one soldier remained virtually silent and almost disengaged with what was going on around him, the other was eager to share his stories, his background, his experiences. even this first panel, even just seeing two people who had gone to Iraq--there was the beginning of a certain dismantling of preconceived ideas of 'soldiers' (emphasis on the plural) and their individual/shared experiences while at war.
and so the conference progressed. it became clear that every single person had their own opinions about the war--whether or not they had gone, whether or not they had supported it. I mean--okay, obviously, right? but at the very least, the erosion of this unified 'military' front on the war was starting to take place. not in the sense that a full-on roast of the military or the war took place, but in the sense that you got deeper into what it meant to be in the military, to have been in combat. I don't think I speak only for myself when I say that the most memorable, interesting, and thought-provoking moments took place outside of Joukowsky: coffee breaks, meals, smoking breaks. it was when people were off the stage and were interacting one-on-one or in more personal instances that the human side of this war really began to come out.
and hence the title of this first post--convergences.
the OED defines the word 'converge' as such (took out the 'examples' for the sake of brevity):
converge, v. SECOND EDITION 1989(k{schwa}n{sm}v{revope}{lm}d{zh}) [ad. late L. converg-{ebreve}re (Isidore) to incline together (intr.), f. L. con- together + verg{ebreve}re to bend, turn, incline.]
1. intr. ‘To tend to one point from different places’ (J.); to tend to meet in a point; to approach nearer together, as lines do, which meet if produced far enough. The opposite of diverge.
b. fig. To tend to meet in a common result or point of operation.
c. Math. To approximate in the sum of its terms toward a definite limit: see CONVERGING 2.
2. trans. To cause (lines or rays) to approach each other; to cause to come together.
for me, as a former International Relations and Modern Culture & Media concentrator, studying wars, the military, international politics, and theories surrounding identity, culture, and the media has always been an academic endeavor. these were always topics of research, and it was easy and convenient to treat them as objects/subjects of purely academic inquiry, to maintain a safe distance, keeping myself from becoming personally involved or connected with what I was studying. sure, yes, I've met soldiers and veterans before. I've seen the long-term effects of war (from a Korean standpoint) on family and loved ones. but those interactions were by and large always separated from my personal life.
this past weekend, without turning this post into a weepy, emo, soul-finding mission statement, changed so much about how I saw the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. to find two separate but equally important parts of your life (the personal, the professional) converging over the course of what could be deemed an intensive seminar or workshop (for one weekend! one!) is unbelievably jarring and, for lack of a better word, distressing. to take something almost sterile and to have that be overthrown--I mean... wow. what do you say to that? for every personal bias or opinion I have/had about the war, suddenly there are these cycling questions that while perhaps I was thinking of all along--took on a much heightened importance and urgency. with one swift kick to the head, you're reevaluating and reexamining everything you have ever thought or taken to be true or honest or real. how do you even begin to address those issues? and even if you can stumble through them and turn them into coherent thoughts and semblances of formed opinions or statements, what then? do you go back to your old self--still cleanly dividing the line between you (the personal) and your work (the professional)--despite the emotions, the feelings, the irrational parts of war that you just don't get from studying war that you have now been privy to?
there was one participant from the conference who I will never forget--who, in a way where I know I'm projecting my own (newly-found) anxieties and worries on him, more or less became the catalyst for this unsettling of my preconceived thoughts and opinions. he told me he was going back to Iraq--not as combat, but as a medic. and nevermind all of the conversation and stories and other moments where we had connected--I don't think I can do them justice (as well as the minutiae of the conference)... but when I was saying goodbye to him, I told him to have fun, to enjoy his time at home, and to be safe.
'Be safe.'
and not to place such great emphasis on the stock phrases and words you pull out when saying farewell, but here was that sort of apex-ish moment when I realized that things couldn't, wouldn't (and maybe even shouldn't) be the same. in college you tell your friends 'have fun, be safe, etc.'--you know... don't do anything stupid, don't get too drunk, make good choices. but when it's someone you care about and not just the handshake after an interview or meeting, what does it mean when you're saying those exact same words to someone who the word 'safe' can mean life or death?
as I said earlier in this entry, I'm still trying to sort out these issues myself, still trying to attempt to start a new way to approach this war, the effects of it, its relation to the larger scope of international relations, and now, more than I can say it ever did before, its effects on humanity, on the people (both there and here, both American and not)... I can only offer these rambling thoughts and observations and welcome any feedback or observations from your own experiences.
--ck
Posted by Christina Kim at 09:21 AM | TrackBack (0)
