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With a country as poor as Afghanistan, you can simultaneously argue that amazing progress has been made over the past four years and that the progress of the last four years has barely put a dent in the need.
And given that, the real argument is the one I made yesterday: time for the donor countries of the world to pony up to the bar.
Tragedy is always easier to understand, or to empathize with, when it's the people we care about. That's why the press pays more attention when reporters are hurt in Iraq than when military people are.
I get that, we all get that.
And you treat your own different, which is why you won't see these wives pulled onto the GMA couch for "grief TV" anytime soon, much less, God forbid, doing their turn with Katie.
Fine.
But now that this has brought this closer to home for the press, all terrorist propaganda value of these tapes aside, you would think the press would now realize that all that terrorist-provided file footage they've got is somebody's family, somebody's loved one, getting blown up. So maybe all the networks -- although, ironically, by my count ABC is by far the worst offender -- could stop stuffing their pieces stemming off the injuries to ABC's team, particularly the news pieces on the importance of the roadside bomb, with as many separate segments of footage showing an explosion at, on, or under a convoy as possible.
Is it just beyond the ability of the people who put these pieces together to comprehend that every one of those explosions probably represents the deaths or injuries to other Americans?
I will ask again: if footage exists of the attack on the convoy Woodruff and Vogt were in, do you think it will ever see the light of day on American television?
Here's a standard for the networks: if you won't do it to your own, don't do it to somebody else's.
Every network chose to use some of the footage of an obviously distraught Jill Carroll, rather than merely reporting that additional footage had been released.
Why? Isn't it clear that when these groups take hostages these videos are a critical part of what they're after?
(Wait: that wasn't my obvious question.) Most outlets also reported that although Carroll was crying, she was also asking for all women detainees to be released. But, thanks to the Post, we learn that like the first video, this one too was silent. The claim about what she was saying came from al Jazeera's narrator.
Now, presumably that means they've got more footage than we've seen so far.
But one way or another, I'll ask the same thing I asked when the first footage was released without audio (this is my obvious question) particularly since I don't see why we should assume the kidnappers would bother to have her speak on the tape and then cut out the audio track, as opposed to that being done by al Jazeera, in whom we seem to be putting a great deal of trust: doesn't any network know where to find people who read lips?
The Times' television critic reports on the news coverage of what happened to Woodruff and Vogt, and although given her area of expertise she couldn't possibly claim special knowledge of the level of progress in the country, her piece is an exemplar of what I wrote about in my earlier post so perfect even I couldn't have dreamt it.
She writes:
Bob Woodruff was in Baghdad for ABC reporting the good news that the Bush administration complains is ignored by the news media, and he ended up as a glaring illustration of the bad news.
Mr. Woodruff, the newly named co-anchor of "World News Tonight," spent Friday chatting with friendly Iraqis on the street and slurped ice cream at a popular Baghdad shop to show how some in Iraq are seeking a semblance of normalcy.
Yesterday he and an ABC cameraman, Doug Vogt, were badly wounded while traveling in a routine convoy with Iraqi military forces who are being trained to impose that normalcy and allow American troops to go home.
You see? He went searching for that normalcy, even found some, just as the administration said we would, but in the end what he found -- and therefore what we all found -- is that whatever normalcy exists is a charade, a mask. The normalcy isn't what's real about Iraq, the violence is what's real. (And since the convoy was "routine," one must assume that attack was as well, nothing random or unlucky about it.)
Then she writes something brutally honest and telling:
What happened to Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt was one of those chilling television moments that mark a milestone. This conflict has shown all too clearly that soldiers, civilians, aid workers and journalists are all targets.
Soldiers, American and Iraqi, are wounded and killed by roadside bombs and ambushes every day in tragedies so common they float to the back pages. But until now, at least, network anchors always seemed to sail through hot spots with an inalienable aura of invulnerability, like senators or movie stars.
Mr. Woodruff's plight underscored at a whole new level that Americans there feel like sitting ducks, picked off by a faceless enemy.
What makes this a "milestone," or "a whole new level?"
Nothing more than the fact that Woodruff is network.
Of course, lest we permit the press to get too self-righteous about this, take a moment to remember who it is who decides what makes the front page and what gets relegated ("floats") to the back pages. It isn't us.
She concludes:
The attack was not a Cronkite moment, of course. Nobody in this era of what Ted Koppel, the former "Nightline" host, describes dismissively as "boutique journalism" has the kind of mass audience and unconditional trust Walter Cronkite held when he shook the nation by declaring the Vietnam War unwinnable. Mr. Woodruff, an experienced, talented newcomer, had neither the fame nor the stature to report anything truly groundbreaking about the Iraq conflict.
But, sadly, he did not need to. What happened to him on his third day back in the country said plenty.
The attack on the anchor, merely because he is an anchor, in other words, is to be taken as a representative anecdote for the state of affairs in Iraq.
Don't tell us about progress. Don't tell us about things getting better. Don't give us statistics and peaks and valleys or tell us about troop morale. Because an anchor was hurt, and really, what else do we need to know?
At the very bottom of this wire story about a bomb found (and defused) near the US embassy in Kabul, there's a very quick mention of an event that has received roughly, oh, zero press attention: a donor's conference about to open in London.
Okay, so countries didn't support our going into Iraq. Everyone supported Afghanistan, and they all made high-falutin' arguments about the need to ensure it not fall back into a failed state again.
Time to pony up.
Wonder if the press will bother to attend? No press attention, no accountability (as the press always tells us.)
I think there have been places where the press has been overly critical of the response to Katrina because it hasn't the background to understand how certain things (logistics, the military broadly speaking) work.
But I'm sorry, this just looks bad.
Coming up with a compelling answer to this one is going to take some doing.
Let's be critical of the Post all day long and twice on Sunday -- I know I am -- but at the end of the day let's also recognize its strengths. At the top of the list is the fact that the Post is one of the few, very, very few outlets to keep the promises made by the media after September 11th to continue to follow the story, and keep a permanent presence in Afghanistan. The Times has a permanent stringer on the ground, but her interest runs to stories about how the American military effort has gone awry, especially if someone is claiming civilian deaths. If you're looking to stay fully informed on developments in the country, it's a thin gruel.
As I've said repeatedly, I don't necessarily want good news stories. I want stories that make me say, you know, before I read this, I wasn't fully informed.
The news about the condition of the ABC team seems to be about as good as it could be right now.
Meanwhile, consider this: night after night, when American troops are injured by roadside bombs, it warrants at best a sentence or two of wire service copy from network anchors. The fact that two of their own was injured made this the lead story on CNN, NBC, and, of course, ABC. (CBS ran with a golf tournament.) More than that, each network ran multiple pieces (choosing similar pieces, as I'll detail in a minute.) The condition of the men, what had happened to them, where they had been taken, how they were being cared for, all was elaborated on in detail. While I certainly don't begrudge any of that, it's telling that we never hear any of this information regarding American military personnel who are injured.
What makes them intrinsically less newsworthy? The fact that they're injured more regularly? Perhaps that makes them more worthy of our hearing the details, no?
My point is that, while I cannot imagine this was an intentional attack on journalists (it is enormously doubtful that the two would have been identifiable from the vantage point of those who attacked) by hitting reporters, the bad guys once again scored the "value added" that comes from attacks on the press.
NBC opens with the attack (and is still, as of last night, eliding the fact that they were in an Iraqi vehicle, continuing to report that they were embedded with the 4ID, leading to a somewhat confusing report, since it was an Iraqi troop who was injured with them.)
This leads to a second piece on the Air Force hospital the two were flown to, and finally a third piece, on the risks in Iraq for journalists.
This includes file footage of the attack on the Palestine hotel, thus giving the terrorists additional value for that attack, along with a repetition of the statistic CNN used, that 61 reporters had been killed during the reporting of this story.
ABC, with Elizabeth Vargas in the anchor chair despite it being a Sunday, also opens with the story. (They include a clip of the producer who had been working with the two in Iraq. She says she spoke with both men when they were medevaced to the Green Zone, before they were flown to the Air Force hospital. The fact that they were conscious and able to speak despite head injuries has to be very good news.)
Their second story regards the "surge" in roadside bombs, and includes 1, 2, and then a third piece of file footage of bombs going off taken from the terrorists, although with both visual and aural (singing in Arabic as a low soundtrack) cues regarding their source.
Later there is footage of a bomb being assembled from a terrorist source, then another, and another, of one going off.
That's a good deal of visual bang for the buck, so to speak, as a good bit of terrorist footage has been recycled for this piece.
Has anyone involved with the piece stopped for even a moment to consider that what they are showing is not the destruction of humvees and trucks, but human beings?
If footage pops up of the bomb going off that hit the convoy Woodruff and Vogt were in, will any network show that?
They "watch and wait . . . and often film the results," says the reporter, but as usual, there is no consideration, or at least no discussion, of what purpose such filming might possibly serve.
The reporter notes that American troops use "hillbilly armor," jury rigged, but is there any evidence to suggest that is still the case?
Iraqi troops use vehicles that have far less protection, and as a result they often feel like "sitting ducks." (Although in the tease for the piece, Vargas had made it sound as if that quote was going to be attributed to American troops.)
But, "in journalism, you take the risks."
Of course, some hardworking and excellent journalists do. But in saluting Woodruff and Vogt, these pieces are suggesting that the entire press corps is out there confronting these risks on a daily basis. The end result is not only to reinforce the danger, the chaos, the ever present threat, but also to reinforce the idea that all reporters are out there facing this threat daily, and all reports can be trusted because, of course, no one is buying footage from AP or Reuters (much less using footage from terrorists) and no one is using Iraqi stringers. The result, unintentional I'm sure, is even less transparency regarding the reporting from Iraq.
Their third piece is on the quality of military medicine in Iraq, and the way survival rates for the wounded have jumped compared to prior wars.
Their fourth piece is on the risk faced by journalists (and Vargas reports 79 killed during the war, a number far in excess of what the other two networks claimed, although she doesn't source it.)
Surprisingly, the piece is a defense of embedding as a practice. It provides a measure of protection, it permits the reporter to move more freely, it permits the camera to go places it never has gone in previous wars.
Clearly, ABC reporters are committed to embedding.
Iraq is explained as uniquely dangerous for reporters. But the story is violence, so getting close to the story means getting close to violence, says the reporter doing the piece.
You see what I mean. These stories are fine, but they do not make clear that while celebrating the heroics of the reporters who work this way is one thing, this simply is not what all reporters are doing. There is no mention, for example, that embedding as a practice has become enormously controversial, and is far from universally supported or engaged in by the press corps. In that sense it takes us further from transparent reporting, not closer.
The simple fact is that "being responsible" for a reporter in Iraq may mean wearing body armor, may mean embedding, may mean travelling with a security detail -- but it may also mean not travelling at all on a given day, but purchasing footage, and putting the piece together from what's available. The audience deserves to hear that, too.
Update: I should have pointed out, by the way, that the Post considers this front page news.
Which do you think is more likely (or, if equally likely, which would bother you more):
First, that, as some poor nations now allege, NGOs and charities use major disasters -- like, say, the tsunami -- to raise funds, then spend the money on whichever project they believe is their highest priority, regardless of what you, the donor, thought you were giving money for
--or--
Second, that the poor nations are making this complaint in order to get tighter control over the money the charities have to expend
--or--
I've been one of the people making the argument that if reporters have felt unsafe leaving the Green Zone in Iraq, that embedding with the military more often is one solution.
But clearly that isn't a "silver bullet," a way to guarantee people's saftey, as was made clear today when it was announced that ABC co-anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman have been seriously injured in Iraq. (Why the hell doesn't ABC have something more than a wire story on their web site?)
Ironically, this morning this long story about Woodruff and his co-anchor appeared in the Post.
As I've noted before, I fully understand that I'm making two arguments that are in direct tension with one another, asking for reporters to get out and about more, and simultaneously strenuously asserting that no story is worth a life. Which is why, as I've also noted before, the way to resolve that tension is more transparency in the final reporting on what limits there were on any given story.
In the meantime, this is terrible news, so take a minute and do, well, whatever it is you do. Think a good thought, say a prayer, light a candle.
Update: ABC provides on-air updates at the start of "This Week." It is not entirely accurate that they were embedded with the 4ID. That American unit is training Iraqis, and they were with the Iraqi forces in the convoy, meaning they were not in a vehicle that was fully armored. (A back-handed way of saying American vehicles are armored.) They were not in a pick-up, but were riding in the hatch of whatever vehicle they were in, so despite helmets and body armor, were exposed.
Yet more credit to ABC: they were injured attempting to cover the most underreported and most important story of the war -- the quality of Iraqi troops and the progress their training is making.
