Today's New York Times online provides a cool multimedia feature on Iraq. If you're not up to speed on what's at issue as Petraeus and Crocker head to the hill to give their perspectives this week, this is a great place to start. Watch the video overview and then click through each of the neighborhoods to see a list of vital statistics and photo galleries. It's a good companion to the lead feature:
BAGHDAD, Sept. 8 — Seven months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.
If you're seeking a relatively short backgrounder on why these sects battle, TIME magazine had a great one. If you have more time to learn deep background, read Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid (a Pulitzer Prize winner and graduate of our fine j-school).
One of the principle critiques of American news media (and the audiences that consume their content) centers on an inability to focus on the long ball, to cover complex and lasting stories well. Iraq is certainly in that arena. News organizations are accused of covering any particular battle with aplomb but losing sight of the war overall. Do you agree? As someone in whose name (and with whose money) this war was initiated and is fought, have the news media done enough to help you understand it? (Incidentally, Newsweek had an intriguing piece this week arguing that perhaps you also ought to be forced to fight it.)
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Interactive on the Surge
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2 comments:
Night Draws Near is an amazing book and I highly recommend it!
I like this question a lot because it still perplexes me. I think, as I also learned in a political science class last semester, that the American press' debatable inability to capture the bigger picture of large events--such as the war in Iraq--is not a question of insight, but one of honesty, and the rules of objectivity. I read a very interesting article that said, American journalists worry so much about objectivity, that they have lost their voice. They fear so much appearing bias that they do not challenge things that only they could bring into the light. So, yes, I do think that the American media system has failed to address the larger picture, especially when it comes to the war in Iraq, and that is due to lack of the muckraking spirit, or courage, of the very principles that journalism was founded on. Of course, there are still plenty of journalists willing to, and actively seeking to, speak out against corruption and deceit, but I'm afraid there are not enough for a time in need of a collective and agreed upon voice.
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