NYT At War
Seth Mnookin at Vanity Fair takes a ramble through the New York Times Baghdad bureau. It’s NYT at war … with itself, in much of this article … but despite offering some insight on infighting and bang-bang, Mnookin’s meander fails to go much of anywhere.
There’s some elaboration on internal disputes we’ve heard about over the years, though not a great deal of substance on how it actually affected coverage. Re bang-bang, I especially enjoyed the one about an old co-worker, Ian Fisher, interviewing a guy who announces he’s an insurgent and pulls out a hand grenade, which prompts Fisher’s Iraqi fixer to cock his gun against the guy’s head. The interview proceeds. They always said Iraq was one of the more difficult reporting environments the U.S. press ever encountered.
There’s some gratuitous Bush-bash:
If the Bush administration has taught us anything, it’s the consequences of not learning from the lessons of the past. At the moment, we’re in danger of losing our access to the present.
A peaceful present brought to you by the Bush admin. It’s a little ironic. While Mnookin notes the complications of reporting, the damage infighting did to the NYT operation and the growing dearth of reporters in wartime Baghdad, he manages to avoid addressing those or other any issues in a meaningful way. Like how come everyone missed the fact that America was winning in Iraq. Like how come an underfinanced bureau of one hanging out with grunts in Diyala … Michael Yon … was so far ahead of major news organizations on that curve. Maybe someday someone will write a media deepthink piece that explains that.
For all its faults, the New York Times employed John Burns, one of the few reporters will the brains and guts to say during some of the most difficult times that what the United States was doing in Iraq, if at times ineptly, was a good thing. Mnookin does note in passing that Burns’ departure in 2007 ended the “master narrative” of the war. His focus on the fortifying of NYT’s compound fails to note what made for its best coverage. Choices by people like Filkins to exit that fortress, to interview Iraqis, to embed, and for daily jogs. Mnookin, while noting that Iraqis loved American coverage of Abu Ghraib and also, how few American reporters died in Iraq, inadvertantly touches on but fails to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that Dexter Filkins noted in his excellent book, The Forever War: The American press in Baghdad served the insurgents well. Why would they want to stop them?
Here’s a little more on Filkins, whose book is a necessary addition to any Iraq War library. Jim Brady at Forbes, and a quickie author interview at the Miami Herald, as well as his own recent take on a trip back to Baghdad after two years away: Jarred By The Calm. Brief excerpt with my own quickie review of his book here.
Some prior re NYT and others, in and/or on Iraq:
Lazy, Stupid or Willfully Ignorant?
Sprechen Sie Deutsches Mit Einer Tauben Welt
Dumpster Diving For Hidden Treasures
AP Analysis: War is Hard, We’re Depressed (Can We Leave Now?)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:58 pm on Monday, November 24, 2008
2 Responses to “NYT At War”
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November 24th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Michael Gordon at the NYT also did a nice job of covering the insurgency, especally during the few times they actually consented to let him go to Iraq. When he was there for the surge his articles were an excellent source of information, though you had to watch the byline for additional names - some of them were rounded out by the NYT propaganda department, in order to provide the proper “narrative.”
November 24th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Some people just need to be important, or to appear important.