Afghanistan

Afghanistan

  • everyone

embedded journalists

  • embedded agreement
  • philosophically uncomfortably
  • uneasy compromise
  • no middle way (why? .. cost… security )
  • antithetical to what the media does

gram smith
Tariq Ali

Stockholm syndrome

  • embedded with one side of the story
  • hanging out
  • where is your perspective and bias
  • you don't want to alienate your main source of protection

restrictions

  • particular types of information
  • casualty reporting - fatality - first notification of kin - media organizations go into lock down

Who do we deal with it

  • what service can we provide
  • closed loop
  • military monopoly on information - not true
  • the only monopoly they have is - is on distribution

full time commitment

  • globe reporter on the ground all the time
  • the globe is the only one that doesn't go dark
  • rotation - 6-8 weeks - 3 weeks off - Gram

Outside sources of information

  • independent network
  • employing local assistants
  • does this network operate inside or outside the wire? does that matter?
  • ability to reach out to local government

General Fraser, Yesterday employed the mantra: It's the mosque stupid, life begins and ends in the Mosque Have you tried to get inside the mosque and report on this centre of Afghan life?

assets

  1. bearing first hand witness - first hand accounts (the nuances of the )
  2. second hand sources - the network
  3. stress test the assertions made by the media

human geography

  • I give my reporters a syllabus - these are the 5 books you should

local media - is their any local capacity to report - have you ever tried to reprint or liase with afghan media

support for the Canadian Mission has decline

  • 60 - 40% drop
  • is the media complicit in the decline of support
  • over emphasis on casualties

What kind of capacity do you think Canadian troops have over seas - I have been told the current policy that from now on whenever there is an IED all operations will stop and all focus shifts to extracting the casualties and containing the scene. Are our soldiers making a significant contribution to security and infrastructure in Afghanistan?

detainees

  • changing the transfer protocol
  • tightened the policy
  • continuing problems
  • the Canadians have stopped handing them over

investigative reporting

security

  • security sector is becoming such that is too dangerous to operate
  • carefully calibrate decision
  • we used to have an office with a tea room and computers
  • it got broken into - by Taliban - they didn't take the computers
  • they know who we are - and it is a choice not to attack us
  • it must have been good timing

operation medussa

  • asymmetric warfare - IED, suicide bombers, attacking civilians

welch

  • cultural language -
  • a reporting choice -
  • what is journalistically significant about
  • cultural sensitivity
  • lack of confidence in the political masters
  • it is amazing how they are not

six months swings

  • they are not there long enough to feel dispair
  • no existential angst

official opposition

  • stress test government policy
  • nobody is left to do we have to fill the void

embedding

  • vetting
  • Canadian military is incredibly open minded and flexible
  • never questioned him
  • he is totally on his own outside the wire
  • Canadians are renowned and bold with their embedding program

interesting biafercation between support for the soliders and support for the mission
no vietnam like backlash

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