Four NYT Journalists Missing in Libya (Update!)

NYT's Media Decoder reported this afternoon that four NYT journalists are missing in Libya: Anthony Shadid and Stephen Farrell, both prominent war reporters; and Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, photojournalists who regularly produce amazing images of war-torn countries.

This news is doubly frightening considering the recent treatment of 3 BBC reporters in the hands of the Libyan military. For 21 hours, they were beaten and subjected to fake executions, but were eventually released. Also, this happened in Egypt a month ago.

When I first read about the NYT reporters, it felt like my heart had dropped to my stomach. I'm especially familiar with Hicks and Addario's photos since I have great admiration for war photographers. They put themselves in the direct paths of tense and life-threatening situations in order to capture a shot that properly showcases a war. Whenever I see their photos, I always wonder what's happening around them – what is not seen in the images captured?

Two weeks ago, Hicks' account of his experience photographing in Libya appeared on the Lens blog. About war photography, he had said:

Conflict is very difficult to capture in a still photograph. Once you take away the sound and the motion, when you’re trying to capture that feeling and that atmosphere, it’s very difficult to translate — what it feels like to be there, the confusion and gunfire and bombs and all these things that envelop you in battle. To take a single photograph of that is a challenge.

It can be so easy to romanticize lives of war reporters and photographers – God knows I'm guilty of that with all the books I've read from war reporters. But then something like this happens and all I can feel is incredible dread. It reminds me that though their work must be exhilarating and fulfilling, that rush can sometimes come at the expense of their safety. They remain in my thoughts.

Update 3/18/11:

Christiane Amanpour interview Qaddafi's son and he said that the four journalists are under government custody and will be released later today!

David S. Broder, Pulitzer-winning Columnist, Dies at 81

"As good a journalist as David Broder is, he's a better human being," Lou Cannon, a former Post colleague, once said.

From The LA Times

The Remaking of the President by John Heilemann

In the most recent cover story of New York Magazine, John Heilemann sets out with an ambitious agenda. With a title as grandiose as "The Remaking of the President," Heileman must deliver an article that explains three things:

1) What Barack Obama previously stood for
2) The reasons why our president needs to be "remade" and
3) What the Obama administration will do in order to succeed, and how it will differ from the last two years

This story had the potential to become a messy, convoluted clusterfuck – and really, it's been written so much in the last month since Congress' lame-duck session concluded – but Heilemann skillfully covers these three points and has even managed to make it readable. Of course, the article will be devoured by anyone interested in the intricacies of politics, but he manages to also bring a very human aspect to the thought process behind all the dreary political strategizing. His goal, as a writer, is not just to explain to politico freaks where the Obama administration went wrong with the president's image; what Heilemann set out to do, and succeeded, is to get the average person excited once again about having a president that they elected into the White House.

I very much consider myself an average purveyor of politics – I don't have the stamina to follow it as closely as I'd like to, nor do I really have the rabid interest. In general, I try my best to keep my attention away from the 24-hour news coverage. Heileman seems to be aware of the general disinterest the public holds for our politicians. Sure, we read the big stories, but we don't really care to consume the minute, day-to-day details of the Obama administration or the obstacles they face. He knows this, and so weaved throughout all the political jargon of his story is a more personal narrative of our president.

By painting a picture of a president who is willing to explore new ways to connect with American citizens, Heilemann's very political article is actually a personal story in disguise. At the root of it, he has shown us that Obama is willing to change in order to become a better leader. This can sound somewhat self-serving, since the man has to face a re-election in 2012, but think about it in this way: Can you imagine our previous president ever changing despite the all-time low numbers that he received during his presidency? The famous "Decider" actually putting on his thinking cap to rationally consider consequences before moving forward? For anyone who said, "Well, maybe..." I need only to refer you to Matt Lauer's interview with Bush when he was making the rounds for his book tour. Even with no political gain in sight, Bush was still tap-tap-tap-dancing for pride's sake. Honestly, it was like watching an old friend constantly fucking up, and knowing that he fucked up, but never saying, "I'm sorry," or "Maybe I shouldn't have done that." We may know him well and accept him for who he is (hell, we had to for eight years) but that doesn't make it any less frustrating to watch.

As I said earlier, what really cemented Heilemann's article was the amount of very humanizing interviews about Obama from unnamed and named sources. Here's one I particularly liked:

Obama knew that the hardest change for him to make would be shattering his self-circumspection, but resolved to push himself to do so. "he's got an enormous capacity to do what he has to do when he recognizes he has to do it," the Democratic bigwig says. "During the campaign, he did a lot of things he didn't like to do, and he actually got pretty good at it. A lot of it was just the bullshit – the receptions, the glad-handling, all the stuff you have to do to be political. You have to be extrovert plus, and he will never be extroverted, much less plus. But he'll get better at this, because he knows he has to, and he will work at it."

You know the saying that a tiger will never change its stripes? Well, it must be a shitload harder for a president to do so because at least a tiger doesn't have all the major news networks watching its every move and putting an ulterior motive to its actions.

Obama's personal changes are also reflected in the changes within his administration, and Heilemann is able to clearly map out all the old players that are leaving (though who will still be present in some form in the re-election campaign) and the new players coming in. My favorite example that Heilemann latches on to show (not tell!) Obama's desire to make changes, despite it being outside of his comfort zone, is his appointment of Bill Daley as the new chief of staff, replacing Rahm Emanuel (who can now run for mayor in Chicago because that ridiculous residency kerfuffle is done and over with – thank you, Chicago Tribune, for publishing this very sensible Op-Ed. You're still one of my favorite newspapers.) He could have gone for Pete Rouse, an old Obama hand who stepped in during the transition period of Emanuel leaving his position, and whom Obama would have probably preferred in the role, if it were not for his administration's need for an outside perspective.

By a long shot, the easier and safer path would have been to stick with Rouse, a beloved figure in the White House whose permanent elevation would have been greeted by a standing ovation in the West Wing. But Obama had come to believe that, for all of Rouse's many and evident virtues, he needed new blood and new thinking, even if – especially if – it pushed him outside of his narrow comfort zone.

Does anyone remember how during the last leg of the campaign, everyone was freaking out because McCain had just announced his VP candidate (McCain, I will never – never – forgive you for bringing that woman into public consciousness. You are the reason a moose is dead.) and suddenly the game has completely changed? Remember this photo?



Obama's got it. He's a smart, capable man who, as Heilemann has so eloquently shown, is willing to admit his administration's shortcomings and make changes to it to get our country on the right track. Amidst the clusterfuck of hateful political rhetoric, the hypocritical Tea Partiers and the newly elected right's braggadocio, he still manages to come out with dignity.

(Photo: Pete Souza/The White House)

Obama Steps Up

"The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better. To be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud."

(The full transcript can be found here.)

Here are some reactions:
Obama's Tucson Speech: Inspiration, but the Tone Surprised Some (CNN)
Fox News was Pretty Gaga Over Obama's Speech Last Night (Business Insider)
Obama Brings It Home (Gail Collins of NYT)

Words of Wisdom Today from Mike Allen's Playbook

We live our lives by a simple rule that we teach our kids: If you wonder whether it's OK, it's not.

A little simplistic, but when referring to tenuous line between advertising and newsrooms autonomy, it certainly applies. Allen is referring to The Washington Post's ombudsman Andrew Alexander's piece about Amazon links being inserted into a Post review online. The click provided from an interested reader delivers a pay cut to The Post, which is slightly troubling in itself, but my (the newsroom's) sense of unease is amplified by the fact that the links will be in the article itself and not in some clearly-marked Amazon-hosted side bar or at the end of the article.

I don't know if there is a marked ethical difference on the placement of the links (though my instinctive response of, "...What??" tells me that I certainly believe so) but I am also seeing it from a reader's point of view. The idea of having links in my newspaper article drive me from the article to Amazon.com is just a little too jarring for me. If I were to click on "Transformer's toys" thinking it would lead me to somewhere else on Washpo/other news outlets (maybe a business story about how toys do as failing franchises grow? I don't know - just an example) it would be really disconcerting when I find myself at a website that is directly aimed at my money-spending sensibilities.

Now reader-convenience aside, as a wannabe journalist , the idea of having links to a consumer website within an article just makes me skin crawl. I know it's probably not a big deal (even Alexander says that no reader has complained to him about it) but even with all the safeguards put up by the Post, I feel like if I were a writer crafting a story, I might hesitate to use a product name unless if it's absolutely necessary.

I just don't understand why Amazon can't have a little scrollable sidebar where they automatically generate the products mentioned in the article - so it looks like it were an Amazon code generating it, instead of the Post hyperlinking it. Like I said, I'm not sure if it's a big difference, but it certainly makes me feel less uncomfortable when I look at an article littered with consumer links.

Perhaps the best thing for them to do is as Allen says Politico does: They include products in Playbook for a reader's convenience, but they get nothing from it.

After all, if the executive editor Marcus W. Baruchli says that their primary concern is "simplifying a user's experience," then I know it would be far simpler for me to not have to mull over the ethical concerns of their business practices within the newsroom.

PS. I just looked briefly through some articles and I realized that there are rarely any products mentioned in Politics, World and Domestic News and D.C. news, which is certainly expected.

Daniel Schorr, Journalist, Dies At 93

According to The New York Times obituary, Daniel Schorr was denied readmission into the Soviet Union because of his disregard for the Soviet censors, and he was #17 on Nixon's "enemies list" because of his reporting of the Watergate scandal.

Schorr discovered that "Follow the money," was never uttered by Deep Throat; it was actually written by the script writer for the movie! Alicia Sheppard recounts Schorr's efforts to find that infamous phrase in Woodward and Bernstein's book.

A former research assistant of Schorr talks about the invaluable lessons that he took from working with him. Guy Raz, now the host of NPR's Weekend All Things Considered, said that it is because of Schorr that he now believes that to practice journalism, there must be that "demand for excellence and accuracy and fairness and nuance and [the] kind of unwillingness to just take things for face value."

Good friends with Frank Zappa, Schorr was invited onstage to sing at his concert in 1988. He was, frankly, terrible.

Schorr would also sing German opera and Marx Brothers nonsense songs and Edith Piaf before going on air. Please read NPR's Scott Simon's tribute to the end.

(Photo: Schorr works at a press table during the Watergate hearings on June 1, 1973, while on assignment for CBS News. CREDIT: Gjon Mili//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

The Runaway General

Since its publication last week, this Rolling Stone's article by Michael Hastings has been met with a lot of controversy. Not surprisingly, the 24-hour news cycle and blogosphere (hey y'all!) immediately jumped on the most gossip-y aspect of the article: the beginning that featured the General and his aides criticizing President Obama and generally maintaining a tone of derision for much of the senior administration. The Biden/Bite-Me comment was repeated throughout the interwebs and the cable news networks, followed by speculation of what the president would say to McChrystal when he was summoned back to D.C. from Afghanistan because of this article (Spoiler alert!: McChrystal was dismissed; Petraeus replaces him in the sequel.) After the dust from that settled, all of these cable news networks and websites turned their attentions back to the war in Afghanistan.

Nah, I'm only playing. Why should we focus on the true subject of Hastings' article, the international war crisis? Journalists, being an inherently narcissistic bunch, decided to turn their attentions back to themselves. For the past week, Michael Hastings' integrity has been judged by a panel of flacks sitting against green screens in their cozy offices, and his article has been dissected, exulted and assaulted by the public and press.

As a journalism student, I truly am interested in the consequences this article would have on the future quality of war reporting. I very nerdily devour blogs about off-the-record/on-the-record nuances when embedded 24/7 with a platoon and I love seeing what other war reporters have to say about this (Hi Lara, good to see you again! Even if you are dead wrong). But when the amount of articles/blogs/cable news time devoted to this "introspection" far, far outnumber the articles that actually look at the subject of Hastings' piece, I can't help but feel like we have somehow missed the point. *

Yes, Hastings has written a profile of McChrystal, but it was not to showcase the General's insubordination. The article is about how our military is coping in what is now the longest-running war since Vietnam with a controversial strategy that Obama has supported with the 30,000 troop surge last fall. This military strategy is known as counterinsurgency, or COIN, and it is not something that will solve the war's problems with one fell swoop. Hastings describes it:

COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation's government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps

One of the biggest problems with COIN is that its success is hard to gauge. Dexter Filkins, an amazing war reporter for The New York Times, took part in a Q&A session over at the Times' At War blog and he said:

I think the best evidence of COIN working, at least marginally, is Iraq in 2007 and 2008. Remember how the Iraq war unfolded: In the first three and a half years, American troops concentrated mostly on killing insurgents. They did that, but they profoundly alienated the Iraqi population. The result was the apocalyptic levels of violence that we saw in 2005 and 2007. In 2007, with the surge, the strategy was fundamentally changed. The overriding goal became the protection of the population.

What is immediately alarming is Filkins reached for the Iraq war as the clear example of COIN working (according to Filkins, who said "best evidence" not "only evidence"), meaning that there are still really no successful long-term results that we can confidently point to.

Another thing that is disturbing in Hastings' article is how there is a disconnect between what the soldiers understand their role to be and how they wish to carry their roles out. Hastings gave several anecdotes of how soldiers are angered by the stringent directives from McChrystal to avoid civilian casualties. These young men believe that these edicts – that are probably distorted from having been passed down the ranks – put them in greater danger in an already-deadly war zone. Staff Sgt. Kennith Hicks said:

"I get COIN. I get all that. McChrystal comes here, explains it, it makes sense. But then he goes away on his bird, and by the time his directives get passed down to us through Big Army, they're all fucked up – either because somebody is trying to cover their ass, or because they just don't understand it themselves. But we're fucking losing this thing."

I may have to spend a little more time reading up on COIN but there seem to be an almost contradictory quality of a military invasion coupled with the COIN beliefs. By holding back the pressure because of McChrystal's understandable worries of civilian casualties, the soldiers believe that they are also allowing the insurgency flourish. Yet if they were to open fire on insurgents and kill a single civilian by accident, there will be ten more insurgents created because of the outrage over the civilian's death. This tug-of-war for the hearts of the Afghan people is really confusing to me, a reader. I can only imagine how it must feel having to try and fathom this while carrying out the duties of a soldier.

Finally, there is the problem of the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai's presidency in Afghanistan. Last year, Karzai won the presidential election, an event that has been accused of electoral fraud rife with government corruption. He is also not a reliable ally to the U.S., and is without the support of the Afghan people. Unfortunately, in order for the U.S. military to help rebuild a government in Afghanistan, they will need the support of a strong leader who holds the faith of his people and shares the values of Americans. Hastings said:

This is one of the central flaws with McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy: The need to build a credible government puts us at the mercy of whatever tin-pot leader we've backed.

It angers me, looking at these three main problems outlined in Hastings' article, that we can spend such a significant amount of time going back and forth about whether or not Hastings had betrayed an "element of trust." President Obama may or may not have dismissed McChrystal because of his Bite-Me jokes – but my guess is that the sloppy handling of this war showcased so clearly in Hastings' article is probably what convinced him that there needed to be a change in the commander executing a strategy that will very likely keep American soldiers in Afghanistan for an indefinite amount of time.

I'll leave you with the passage that broke my heart. It is about a visit that McChrystal made to the White House in mid-May with Hamid Karzai. Exultant praises are made to each leader and at one point, President Obama said, "There is no denying the progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years – in education, in health care and economic development," he said. "As I saw in the lights across Kabul when I landed – lights that would not have been visible just a few years earlier." Hastings follows the president's quote this:

It is a disconcerting observation for Obama to make. During the worst years in Iraq, when the Bush administration had no real progress to point to, officials used to offer up the exact same evidence of success. "It was one of our first impressions," one GOP official said in 2006, after landing in Baghdad at the height of the sectarian violence. "So many lights shining brightly." So it is to the language of the Iraq War that the Obama administration has turned – talk of progress, of city lights, of metrics like health care and education. Rhetoric that just a few years ago they would have mocked.

(*And yes, I have not missed the irony in starting this post with some media criticism.)