real journalism

Finally! A journalist with balls

Okay, the title is an easy joke, because this journalist is a woman. But what I want to emphasize is that photojournalist Molly Bingham asked questions recently that virtually no male reporter has had the balls to ask.

A little about her background shows that Ms Bingham has earned her professional creds.

"Bingham, a Louisville native, was detained in 2003 by Iraqi security forces and held in Abu Ghraib prison from March 25 to April 2, 2003. Eighteen days after her release, she returned to Iraq to pursue stories for The New York Times, The Guardian of London and others. Taking a short break during the summer of 2003, Bingham had the idea of working on a story to explore who was involved in the nascent resistance that was becoming apparent throughout Iraq. She scanned the papers that summer, looking for an article that would show some journalist had reported the story, had gone deeper to find out the source of the new violence. No one had. So in August 2003, Bingham returned with British journalist Steve Connors and spent the next 10 months reporting the story of the Iraqi resistance."

In an article from the Louisville Courier-Journal that was based on a speech given at Western Kentucky University,
Bingham raised serious questions...and also gave her opinion on why the run-up and continuation of the War in Iraq has been waged with virtually no probing journalistic queries by the American media.

"If you look closely, you will notice there is very little, maybe even no direct reporting on the resistance in Iraq. We do, however, as journalists report what the Americans say about the resistance. Is this really anything more than stenography?"

After her many months in Iraq, Bingham related the 5 lessons learned by her and her team:

• Lesson One: Many journalists in Iraq could not, or would not, check their nationality or their own perspective at the door.
  
  
• Lesson Two: Our behavior as journalists has taught us very little. Just as in the lead up to the war in Iraq, questioning our government's decisions and claims and what it seeks to achieve is criticized as unpatriotic.
  
  
• Lesson Three: To seek to understand and represent to an American audience the reasons behind the Iraqi opposition is practically treasonous.
  
  
• Lesson Four: The gatekeepers -- by which I mean the editors, publishers and business sides of the media -- don't want their paper or their outlet to reveal that compelling narrative of why anyone would oppose the presence of American troops on their soil.
  
  
• Lesson Five: What it's like to be afraid of your own country.
  
  

This compelling article does what so few have done since this Iraqi insanity began. It attempts to dig beneath the rampant propagandizing that has become part and parcel of this Administration and all its public utterances, whether on issues domestic, defensive or offensive.

I'd urge anyone interested in getting beyond the barrage of lies to read this article. What's more, it should be required reading for all working journalists and more importantly, for all students of journalism who are just learning the craft.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Apparently, newspapers were quite a bit different in Jefferson's day than they are today. The shameful evidence is that it was incredibly easy for a government with evil intent to seduce and/or intimidate today's media into submission. And that cannot portend good for any democracy.

posted by mauiloa @ 12:42 AM