News & Features Feedback
New This WeekAround TownMusicFilmArtTheaterNews & FeaturesFood & DrinkAstrology
  HOME
NEW THIS WEEK
EDITORS' PICKS
LISTINGS
NEWS & FEATURES
MUSIC
FILM
ART
BOOKS
THEATER
DANCE
TELEVISION
FOOD & DRINK
ARCHIVES
LETTERS
PERSONALS
CLASSIFIEDS
ADULT
ASTROLOGY
PHOENIX FORUM DOWNLOAD MP3s

  E-Mail This Article to a Friend
The home front
Local news organizations confront the war in Iraq
BY DAN KENNEDY

More coverage of the War on Iraq:

In a Phoenix editorial, we recommend a deep breath. This war and its consequences are still unfolding.

Seth Gitell imagines how Senator John Kerry might frame a war debate against George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

Dan Kennedy examines local coverage of the war.

Michael Bronski on the paradox of supporting our troops while practicing dissent.

David Valdes Greenwood attended last weekend’s peace rally in Boston and remarks on the maturation of the current protest movement.

Richard Byrne wonders if the bombings of propaganda outlets in Iraq---like the ones last weekend---are smart military tactics or a breach of the rules of war.

Notes from Northern Iraq

ON MARCH 29, in response to a request for comment, Boston Globe reporter David Filipov, who is covering the war from Northern Iraq, sent a long e-mail — plus two follow-ups — that are passionate, anguished, and funny. Some excerpts:

On whether he would have stayed in Baghdad if he hadn’t been kicked out. That’s the hardest question anyone has asked me in a long time.

I felt as though it was a justifiable risk to try to stay for the bombing campaign, because the stories of what happens inside those campaigns need to be told.

But you know, most sensible people, when they cover these things, unless they are of the really gonzo war hack ilk, come up with a plan that would keep them close to the action but not commit them to staying in harm’s way should they decide to — or need to — get out.

In Baghdad, there was no way to plan like that. You knew you were either going to be in or out.

Sure, I had supplies, and without going into detail to protect people still there, safe places to be and an escape route that might have worked in case things got too ugly.

The planning was a comforting distraction, but I also knew my plans would have kept me safe for only about a week or two. The longer this thing stretches out, the more I realize that after a certain point I would have stopped being an effective reporter for a daily newspaper. So the short ending to this long answer is " for the first week, yes, as things drag on for weeks or months, I must say I’m not so sure. "

My family is unconditionally glad that I’m out.

On his circuitous journey from Baghdad to Northern Iraq. Well, to recognize the true absurdity of the situation, look at a map, and see that I am now in Erbil perhaps a 2-3 hour drive (the way Iraqis drive!) from Baghdad.

I left Baghdad Friday, March 14, I believe. I drove to Amman, Jordan (stopped to interview an Iraqi operating an SA-9 antiaircraft battery in the desert, then nearly got in trouble at the Iraqi border for having an Arabic phrase book that included a map of Israel).

The Globe travel office booked me that Amman-Milan-Moscow ticket for early Saturday, so I spent a few hours in a hotel in Amman, writing stories and answering e-mails (my phone had been confiscated in Baghdad, so people were worried). Amman is such a nice place, especially when you compare it to some of the capitals around the region.

Then I flew. I had a visa for Iran that I had applied for in December. It took three months of haggling to get it, and it came through while I was in Baghdad (there was no way to get it at the heavily guarded Iranian embassy in B-dad, so I had to pick it up where I had applied, in Moscow, where I live).

As it happened, Tuesday, March 18, was the last day that I could use it. Through contacts with the Kurdish Democratic Party I was escorted to the Iranian border, where, for a small fee, I was allowed to enter Iraq.

Pssst: I’d like to say something kickass here, like " You see, Dan, a good war reporter always has a Plan B. " That’s what I was telling awed colleagues in Baghdad. In reality, going to Kurdish territory via Iran had been my Plan A, but then I ended up in Baghdad and everything got twisted around. Any good reporter has to have a good Plan A.

On the difficulties and rewards of covering this war. You mean the most difficult part other than leaving two little children who think the world of me to be alone at this important and sensitive time of their lives? So that they can ask me when I phone them, " Papa, is there war where you are? " Hmmm....

Well, in Baghdad, I was gearing up to write stories, lots of stories, that perhaps many people in our country would not want to read, about the suffering that any war, even the best-planned and most justifiable, brings. Also, whether I wanted to or not, I was going to be writing about things the Iraqi government wanted me to write. I loathed the idea of being an instrument in Saddam’s hands, but if that was what it took to bring a side of the story that Americans should see into American homes, then so be it. But this was going to be difficult, and dangerous, with an outcome that was unclear.

Now? Now, I’m in a war zone, but in a place where the war, so far, has amounted to a few skirmishes, a little bombing, a few mortar rounds fired here and there. In a lot of ways, the operational situation here is similar to northern Afghanistan at the beginning of the war there in October 2001, except that in the rest of Iraq, there are all these huge battles under way.

Up here, we are in this big holding pattern, and the waiting for something to happen is starting to get to people. Yesterday [Friday, March 28], the Kurdish Democratic Party held two press conferences in two towns separated by about 30 km of mountain roads, and everyone rushed from one to the other. It’s a tough news day in a war zone when you drive 30 km to get to a press conference. Another little wrinkle: The borders of Turkey and Syria are closed, and my Iranian visa is expired. As far as the Iraqi government is concerned, I’m here illegally. The only way I’m getting out of here is through liberated Baghdad. And all the other reporters here are in the same boat.

I was laughing about this with some French reporters last night. Whatever any of them felt about the need to go to war right now with Iraq, every single one of them is rooting hard for a quick coalition victory now!

The most rewarding thing? As always, I am amazed at the generosity and basic goodness of most of the people in the world, no matter where and how they live. Everyone I met in Baghdad (except for a few government officials!) was friendly, generous, helpful, interesting, and interested. It’s been pretty much the same thing up here. It’s such a tragedy that the work we do is defined by conflicts, because otherwise it would be the greatest job on earth to travel to beautiful places and meet all these wonderful people and learn more about their customs and culture. We get to travel to a lot of amazing places where most Americans would never go.

Get out your old Iraq tourist guide, and you’ll see that Mosul sounds like another one of those places. I just hope there’s something left of it when I get there.

On what he does when he’s not working. Actually, I’m currently composing a musical about the life of war reporters — a sort of " Oliver Hack. " Originally, it was going to be " Afghanistan, The Musical! " But it’s sort of broadened out. I composed a number called the " Hans Blix Rap " and everyone in Baghdad loved it.

Any idea whether I could get something like that on stage?

On working for the Globe. One of the things I imagine people might not realize about the way the Globe is covering this story is just how many people are involved, many of them working nearly round the clock, as I am certainly doing. We have editors whom we reporters in the field call at home before they go to work, and who are still at the paper late in the evening. We have reporters here in Iraq and in the region who are pulling 14- to 18-hour days, every day.

For me, just realizing the size of the operation helps keep things in perspective a bit, because I’m certainly not alone at the paper as far as the personal sacrifices I am making to cover this story.

On journalists who are still in Baghdad. The bombing last night hit the Iraqi information ministry, which is where all the journalists were based, and the only place journalists were allowed to use, and store, their satellite telephones. My expulsion came as a result of my attempt to use my phone elsewhere. After the bombing last night, I wonder what journalists there are doing now. I wonder how many of them had still been keeping their phones there. Not least of all, I wonder how many of them were there. I hope none of them were.

BY DAN KENNEDY

DAVID FILIPOV made it to Northern Iraq the hard way. Filipov, who heads the Boston Globe’s Moscow bureau, had been reporting from Baghdad in the weeks leading up to war. But on Friday, March 14, five days before the bombing began, he was kicked out for using his satellite phone without permission.

Thus began a four-day odyssey. He drove to Amman, Jordan — stopping en route, he told me by e-mail, " to interview an Iraqi operating an SA-9 anti-aircraft battery in the desert. " He added that he " nearly got in trouble at the Iraqi border for having an Arabic phrase book that included a map of Israel. "

Once in Amman, he spent a few hours writing stories and answering e-mails. On Saturday, he flew home to Moscow by way of Milan, Italy, and spent some time with his five-year-old son. (He also has a six-year-old son by a previous relationship.) And on Tuesday, March 18, using the Iranian visa he had just been granted, he flew to Iran. " Through contacts with the Kurdish Democratic Party, " he said, " I was escorted to the Iranian border, where, for a small fee, I was allowed to enter Iraq. "

His first piece from Northern Iraq — co-written with veteran Globe reporter Charles Sennott — appeared in the paper just two days later.

With the war in Iraq now more than two weeks old, the country’s attention, not surprisingly, has shifted to the national and international media: the major television networks, the all-news cable channels, radio services such as NPR and the BBC, and national newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Serious news junkies discuss the merits of British papers such as the Guardian and the Independent, debate whether ArabNews.com is just a propaganda arm of the Saudi government, and share tips on how to get into the new English-language Web site of Al-Jazeera, which was taken down by pro-war hackers almost as soon as it went online.

But this is no less a story for local news organizations. Most people here don’t buy the Times — they get the Boston Globe delivered at home, and perhaps pick up a Boston Herald on their way to work. And for all the hours of continuing coverage being offered on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, the local newscasts at 10 and 11 p.m. remain the television news medium of choice for many. The challenge for Boston-area news organizations has been to cover the war in a way that’s thorough enough to keep their readers, viewers, and listeners informed while offering something other than a rehash of what’s already been reported elsewhere.

Not surprisingly, the Globe, New England’s largest daily newspaper, has produced the most ambitious coverage. According to foreign editor Jim Smith, the paper has 13 or 14 journalists in the region. The paper’s front page is filled with war-related stories every day, and it is publishing a daily eight-page section titled " War in Iraq. " The Globe lacks the resources of the Times, its larger corporate sibling; indeed, Globe editor Martin Baron notes that the Times has 11 reporters and photographers embedded with military units, compared to just four (all the slots that were offered) for the Globe. Yet Baron professes to be pursuing the same mission as his larger competitors.

" We’re trying to cover the war in all respects, " Baron says. " I think we’re trying to offer our readers a total picture of what’s going on. "

In fact, the Globe’s coverage has been remarkably good, and if it hasn’t been quite as thorough as that of the national papers, it has made up for it with enterprise. Two notable examples: John Donnelly’s piece last Friday, documenting the overly optimistic prewar predictions of those in and close to the Bush administration; and, earlier, a story by Charles Radin showing that Palestinians on the West Bank — even educated people who loathe Saddam Hussein — are so repulsed by American aggression that they hope Iraq can somehow prevail.

IF THE RESOURCES available to the Globe pale compared to those of, say, the Times and the Post, the same is true of the Herald’s when compared to the Globe’s. Yet the Herald, perpetually challenged to do more with less, has managed to respond in some interesting ways.

The Herald has only two journalists in the region — reporter Jules Crittenden, who’s embedded with an Army unit, and photographer Kuni Takahashi, who, according to editor Andy Costello, left his embedded post after chafing at military restrictions and is now hooking up with American forces on his own.

But Crittenden — who’s covered past conflicts in, among other places, Kosovo and Kashmir — has emerged as something of a star, both because of his swashbuckling writing style and the way the Herald has packaged his work: in a column titled " At the Front, " complete with a headshot that looks as though he’s just completed a Special Forces operation. Crittenden is also writing a war diary for the media Web site Poynter.org, which has become more fragmentary as his unit has gotten farther into Iraq.

In response to my request for comment, Crittenden e-mailed: " Satphone connection is dicey and time is short ... 90 percent of your answers are ‘embedded’ in the poynter essays. " In Crittenden’s first entry for Poynter, he explains why he volunteered for such hazardous duty: " It is beyond my power to correct the injustices of the world, and I don’t delude myself with the thought that I am somehow doing that. But to live this privileged life without being able to share the knowledge of exactly how safe and wealthy we are would be an injustice. "

The Herald has been eye-popping graphically, running a huge wraparound photo of Baghdad under attack in the first days of the war and publishing eight additional pages every day, many of them photo spreads. The paper has also placed special emphasis on tracking local military men and women, inviting readers to share their stories about family members who are overseas.

Two other Greater Boston media outlets have sent their own people to the Middle East: WBUR Radio (90.9 FM), a publicly owned, news-oriented station affiliated with Boston University, and WCVB-TV (Channel 5). WBUR’s Michael Goldfarb is reporting from Northern Iraq. And according to the station’s general manager, Jane Christo, Connection host Dick Gordon and a producer will be dispatched to Baghdad as soon as that’s feasible — possibly as early as this week, although she says that the idea was for them to " go right in quickly, after the fall of Baghdad, " a plan that now appears to be on hold.

Goldfarb’s reports (in streaming audio) and his online war diary are available on WBUR’s Web site, www.wbur.org.

WCVB news director Coleen Marren says her station decided to keep its on-the-scene reporter, David Muir, at Central Command in Qatar rather than embed him with a military unit so that he can track " our viewers’ daughters and sons " as they pass through. " When you’re embedded, you can’t report all the time, " Marren notes. " He could be in a situation where we wouldn’t hear from him for a couple days. " Muir’s reports are online at WCVB’s Web site, www.thebostonchannel.com.

Though the other television stations do not have any of their own people in the war zone, several have found ways to obtain more-localized reports. WBZ-TV (Channel 4) news director Peter Brown says that corporate parent CBS has made available three reporters with whom he can communicate directly. WLVI-TV (Channel 56), a Tribune station, gets updates from Qatar delivered by a reporter for the chain. (Officials of WHDH-TV/Channel 7 and WFXT-TV/Channel 25 did not return calls seeking comment.)

Charles Kravetz, New England Cable News’s vice-president of news, acknowledges the difficulties that face local media operations during a time of national crisis — especially one such as his, which is on 24 hours a day.

" We have the perspective from home, and that’s a useful adjunct to a story like this, " Kravetz says. He notes, too, that NECN has access to ABC and Associated Press video, and has been able to broadcast interviews with reporters for the New York Times, the Globe, and ABC. But he adds, " We don’t try to fool ourselves or the public about the importance or the breadth or the quality of what’s produced by the national media.... You can’t have such hubris as to think you can beat CNN. "

With a big local story such as the Rhode Island nightclub fire, Kravetz says, the size of NECN’s audience soars. At a time like this, all he can do is hope that the numbers will hold steady. So far, he says, they have.

page 1  page 2 

Issue Date: April 3 - 10, 2003
Back to the News & Features table of contents.
  E-Mail This Article to a Friend

home | feedback | about the phoenix | find the phoenix | advertising info | privacy policy | the masthead | work for us

 © 2003 Phoenix Media Communications Group