The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Journalistic Challenges

The Institute for Security and Conflict Studies hosted a forum titled “The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Journalistic Challenges” on Monday in the Elliott School of International Affairs. The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Ann Scott Tyson and the New York Times’s Michael R. Gordon joined moderator Marc Lynch, the director of GW’s Institute for Middle East to discuss the challenges that face journalists covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The reporters spoke of the surprising level of access embedded journalists have to many levels of military personnel and operations. But they also stressed the danger of their situations, as well as the difficulty of gaining access to the Iraqi and Afghan people and government officials. Their narratives covered topics from the intensity of firefights to the tragedy of losing a colleague to kidnapping or murder. The reporters made it clear that war reporting is not at all similar to reporting domestically.

This forum sparked a discussion on the role that the media often takes, of analysts. The panelists agreed that journalists provide intriguing perspectives on and incites into the causes and effects of wartime conflicts, especially when they are able to get truthful opinions from otherwise recalcitrant citizens.

Marc Lynch, in concluding the forum, remarked that we cannot form national opinions or construct security policy on reporting alone. The panelists had varied reactions to this, Gordon perhaps most strongly. Ultimately the speakers agreed that media does have, at the very least, a significant role in shaping the national conscious and some policy. However, Lynch stressed there must be a clear distinction between journalists and policy-makers.

On a more editorial note, international conflicts are never as simple as journalists often paint them - either by necessity or by choice - in order to more aptly appeal to their audiences. Gordon especially focused on the difference between reporters actually working overseas and those reporting from their offices here in the U.S. The perspectives and the knowledge gained from each foster opposing opinions that have contributed to the confusion of finding a solution for an already complicated situation. Ending these wars is likely not as simple as pulling the troops out; nor is increasing troop unequivocally the most effective way to “win” the war.

This discussion may continue on in the public sphere, especially within the media, but the decisions will ultimately be made by policy-makers. Hopefully those policy-makers will take some of what these reporters have learned into consideration when these decisions must be made. The intention of these journalists to learn and tell the true opinions of Iraqi and Afghan citizens, as well as the stories of the American troops, has been vital to obtaining the whole picture of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


More Information
- Marc Lynch's post on the discussion: http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/01/war_reporting
- Michael Gordon's articles for the New York Times: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/g/michael_r_gordon/index.html
- Rajiv Chandrasekaran's articles for the Washington Post: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/rajiv+chandrasekaran/
- Ann Scott Tyson's articles for the Washington Post: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/ann+scott+tyson/