Dexter Filkins, who covered Iraq brilliantly for this newspaper until his departure this summer to take up a fellowship at Harvard, says he was constantly accused of reporting only the bad news, of being unpatriotic, and of getting Americans killed.
“I don’t think it ever affected our reporting,” he said. “But I did find it demoralizing, the idea that the truth — the reality on the ground that we were seeing every day — did not matter, that these overfed people sitting in TV studios and in their living rooms could just turn up the volume on what they wanted to be happening in Iraq and that that could overwhelm the reality.”
Mr. Filkins added: “I have almost been killed in Iraq 20 or 30 times — really almost killed. “I’ve lost count. Do these people really believe that we were all risking our lives for some political agenda?”
Richard Engel of NBC says he was taken aback when pundits accused him of standing on a balcony in the Green Zone and simply feeding the world bad news. “Like most journalists in Iraq, I have never lived in the Green Zone,” he notes, adding: “To imply from afar we were just lazy was missing the point, and also dangerous. I know several reporters who were so incensed by similar criticism, they took extra risks.”
Of course, being Kristof, he has to throw in a jab at the left:
While it’s the right that led those toxic attacks, the left is also vulnerable to letting ideology trump empiricism. Mr. Filkins notes that while he used to get nasty letters and e-mail primarily from conservatives, much of the fire more recently has come from liberals accusing him of covering up atrocities — all of it from people whose ideological certitude is proportional to their distance from Baghdad.
I’ll leave it to the informed reader to decide for him or herself whether email from liberals accusing journalists of “covering up atrocities” is likely to be remotely close in quantity and vituperativeness to right wing accusations of treasonous liberal media bias, or whether this is just another example of Kristof’s ongoing dedication to transparently false equivalencies.
Some related thoughts on the differences between right- and left- wing media criticism in this post and this cartoon.
Anyone who’s spent any time reading right wing blogs already understood this to be true:
Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.
Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.
But before you go thinking all your conservative friends are psychotic, listen to Lohse’s explanation.
“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’”
The study was an advocacy project of sorts, designed to register mentally ill voters and encourage them to go to the polls, Lohse explains. The Bush trend was revealed later on.
The study used Modified General Assessment Functioning, or MGAF, a 100-point scale that measures the functioning of disabled patients. A second scale, developed by Rakfeldt, was also used. Knowledge of current issues, government and politics were assessed on a 12-item scale devised by the study authors.
“Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry,” the study says.
From an interview with New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff:
Matt: Another type, not really in The New Yorker, is the political cartoon. Maybe we should say something about political cartoons and what you can accept in The New Yorker and what you can’t use.
Bob: I think The New Yorker’s cartoons aren’t very political because the people who do the cartoons aren’t awfully political people, and they aren’t paid to be political. I think editorial cartoonists are. That’s what they do. They probably have a great natural interest in politics, and then they are paid to do it, so they sort of have to hunt out these ideas. I admire editorial cartoons, but I’m also sort of happy that I don’t do them because I’d hate to have to label things and I’d especially hate, more than anything, to label something Dennis Hastert or Mark Foley, you know? It’s just the idea that you have to write something in the drawing to label things is antithetical to The New Yorker type of cartoon. When we do a cartoon, even though it’s political, it’s ambiguous. Like the Michael Shaw cartoon where people are looking at the television and they’re saying, “Gays and lesbians getting married? Haven’t they suffered enough?” That doesn’t really say where he is.
Matt: It’s about the issue, but it doesn’t…
Bob: It’s about the issue, but it’s not on any side of the issue.
Matt: Yeah.
Bob: And I don’t think that’s false. I think that’s the natural way that most people feel about issues other than the ranters or crazies on the radio.
You see, only ranters or crazies on the radio have opinions about issues.
I had two phases as a contributor to the New Yorker. First, working with Mankoff, which, you will not be surprised to learn, didn’t work out very well or last very long. Then, awhile after that, when art director Francoise Mouly convinced me to give it another go. Francoise was good to work with, but then 9/11 came along, and changed everything, if by “everything” you mean “my working relationship with the New Yorker.” Basically it became exponentially more difficult to get anything political past the editors there. And yes, the New Yorker did eventually find its spine again and has printed a lot of really important political writing in the intervening years — but in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the last thing they were interested in was political satire, and after awhile I got tired of banging my head against the wall and stopped submitting stuff. And now that ship seems to have sailed.
Just got an email from someone at an ad agency who saw a couple of my illustrations in the New York Times Book Review yesterday and tracked down my email address (presumably through the Times) to inquire as to whether or not I had a website with further examples of my work, and where it might be found.
Don’t mean to cast aspersions on the inquiry, though I politely turned it down. I’m just truly puzzled by people who don’t think to use Google as a matter of course.
You can’t save the world, but you can help make it slightly more tolerable sometimes. Like this:
Most people don’t think about poor people and their kids’ diapers. Most of us don’t realize that paying for diapers is a huge problem for families who don’t have a lot of money.
Joanne Samuel Goldblum noticed it. As a social worker in New Haven, she frequently observed parents who were unable to afford diapers at the end of the month, after their government assistance funds ran out.
What happens when you can’t afford diapers for your kid? Diaper rash. Incessant crying. And, sometimes, child abuse when the parents can’t take the crying anymore.
More commonly, the result of a diaper shortage is shame and embarrassment.
Two years ago, Goldblum put her thoughts and desire into action.
“After five years of hearing me talk about it, my husband (David Goldblum) got tired of listening to me and he said, ‘There’s got to be a way to do this,’” she recalled.
“It seemed a small enough and easy enough thing to do,” she said.
But when I asked Goldblum if this is small or easy, she replied, “No! It’s not!”
Nevertheless, the New Haven Diaper Bank is up and running. Although it’s a great success, distributing 50,000 to 60,000 diapers every month to about 500 people, there are only two other diaper banks in the country. New Haven’s is a national model, begging to be imitated.
* * *
Goldblum is fed up with comments such as, “Let them use newspaper” or “Why can’t they use cloth diapers?”
Her answer to the first suggestion: “It’s not fair. It’s embarrassing and not up to hygenic standards.”
Her answer to the second: “Families in poverty don’t have easy access to washing machines.”
Goldblum’s goal is to distribute one million diapers per year through the 30 New Haven social service agencies she has lined up. But it costs $7,500 per month to keep this going. Funding comes through grants, foundations and private donations.
Contributions, cash or checks, can be sent to: The New Haven Diaper Bank, 1440 Whalley Ave., No. 110, New Haven, CT 06515. For information: 843-5372.
Wednesday night the Australian media reported that in early 2002 their ambassador to the U.N. was telling the Australian company AWB that a U.S. attack on Iraq was “inevitable.” The information appears in the minutes from a February 27, 2002 AWB board meeting. The minutes are listed on this page, and you can download them directly here (pdf).
Here’s the relevant text, from pages 10-11, with my emphasis added. For anyone curious, a screenshot of the memo itself can be found on my site. (AWB minutes are printed in Helvetica!)
Middle East situation
The Chairman met with the Australian Ambassador to the UN, John Dauth, who gave a synopsis of the current conflict in the Middle East. With regard to Iran, the Ambassador noted that, despite the President’s State of the Union address and reference to the “Axis of Evil,” most acknowledge that US/Iran relations are at an all time high. Accordingly, there appears to be an unofficial agreement between the two countries that despite the language of the President, these comments should be seen as for domestic consumption only. The Ambassador’s view was that it was unlikely that the war against terrorism currently being waged in Afghanistan would follow on to Iran in the current political environment.
However, with regard to Iraq, the Ambassador stated that he believed that US military action to depose Saddam Hussein was inevitable and that at this time the Australian Government would support and participate in such action. The Ambassador believed that the Iraqis grossly underestimated the US’ reaction to September 11 (with the consequent military response in Afghanistan) and that Iraq’s request to re-negotiate UN weapons inspectors was a direct result of their nervousness about US action. The Ambassador believed that the latest “olive branch” from the Iraqis was likely to stave off US action 12 to 18 months but that some military action was inevitable.
The Ambassador felt that engagement in Iraq would be similar to that currently being undertaken in Afghanistan (ie. heavy use of air support followed by deployment of ground troops). He undertook to ensure that AWB was given as much warning as would be possible under such circumstances but noted that in these instances often the Australian Government had little notification. However, he did note that Secretary Powell was running this campaign in a similar way that he ran the Gulf conflict which was to plan meticulously and not rush into conflict.
If George Bush had already decided to invade Iraq by February 2002, who do you think should have been told about it? I ask because apparently everyone on earth knew except regular Americans.
Everyone? you wonder. Including Australian wheat company executives?
A SENIOR diplomat tipped off wheat exporter AWB a year before the Iraq war that Australia would join the US-led invasion, new documents show…
The documents, released by the Cole inquiry yesterday, show Australia’s then UN ambassador John Dauth revealed the Howard Government’s position to former AWB chairman Trevor Flugge.
Mr Dauth briefed Mr Flugge in New York in February 2002 - 13 months before the invasion - and the details appear in minutes of AWB’s February 27 board meeting tendered to the inquiry.
“The ambassador stated that he believed that US military action to depose Saddam Hussein was inevitable and that at this time the Australian Government would support and participate in such action,'’ the minutes said…
“The ambassador believed that the latest olive branch from the Iraqis was likely to stave off US action (for) 12 to 18 months but that some military action was inevitable.'’
I just hope this will bring some much needed attention to the awardees, particularly Ms. Huffington, who’s a wonderful writer but all her career has suffered from a crippling shyness.
Hope the mighty Atrios will forgive me for lifting two posts from him in one day, but I’d forgotten how wonderful these lyrics really were — and like a fine wine, they’ve just gotten better over time.
Freedom in Afghanistan, say goodbye Taliban
Free elections in Iraq, Saddam Hussein locked up
Osama’s staying underground, Al Qaida now is finding out
America won’t turn and run once the fighting has begun
Libya turns over nukes, Lebanese want freedom, too
Syria is forced to leave, don’t you know that all this means
Chorus
Bush was right!
Bush was right!
Bush was right!
Democracy is on the way, hitting like a tidal wave
All over the middle east, dictators walk with shaky knees
Don’t know what they’re gonna do,
their worst nightmare is coming true
They fear the domino effect, they’re all wondering who’s next
Repeat Chorus
Ted Kennedy – wrong!
Cindy Sheehan – wrong!
France – wrong!
Zell Miller – right!
Economy is on the rise kicking into overdrive
Angry liberals can’t believe it’s cause of W’s policies
Unemployment’s staying down, Democrats are wondering how
Revenue is going up, can you say “Tax Cuts”
Repeat Chorus
Cheney was right, Condi was right,
Rummy was right, Blair was right
You were right, we were right, “The Right” was right and
Bush was right
Bush was right
