War reporter, first class

It’s always hard to figure out, from a distance, what’s really happening in a war. The news, by the time is has been edited and cut up into suitably dramatic bite-sized snippets with graphics and music and a pretty anchor is probably just as far removed from reality as the official propaganda. What you see on the television news is often as much a product of PR by the warring parties, or the editorial biases of the editors, as it is of the reportage from the front. Bad news is sensational at best, and sensationalised more often. Good news is almost always qualified: “Meanwhile, elsewhere…”.

This is why I’ve long been an admirer of Michael Yon. He is a self-funded, private journalist and blogger who covers the Iraq war without any support other than that of his readers. He is not employed by a big media house, where news is coloured by the filter of dozens of editors and rewrite subs. He is not funded by an NGO, think tank or lobby group, where news serves activism. He works on his own, funds his own travel and equipment, and negotiates his own military protection where and when he needs it. He’s often found on the front lines, reporting what it’s really like for Americans, Iraqis and other allies to fight for the freedom of Iraq. He’s a refreshing antidote to the “if it bleeds, it leads” brand of media we’re used to. His personal views are clear: he admires the professionalism of the soldiers, and cheers them when they win. And because he’s upfront about it, his views don’t cloud his objectivity.

This dispatch struck me as another of his important stories. It sure is depressing, but for some reason it seems the world needs to see the mass graves of men, women and children before they recognise the reality of what the fight is for. Michael Yon, as usual, is at his post and reporting when they are discovered:

Bless the Beasts and Children

Excerpt: I told the Iraqi commander, Captain Baker, that it was important that Americans see this; he took me around the graves and showed more than I wanted to see. He said the people had been murdered by al Qaeda. I made video of him speaking, and of the horrible scene. The heat and stench were crushingly oppressive and broken only by the sounds of shovels as Iraqi soldiers kept digging.

<snip> Iraqi soldiers were barely talking. All had grim looks and everybody seemed to want to be a million miles away. Yet these Iraqi soldiers helped me do my job.

War reporters - the good ones, that is - are insane. Instead of settling for easy preconceptions, comfortable bias or even gin-soaked fiction, they face the brutal realities of war. Some die, as Kevin Carter and Ken Oosterbroek did. Some take grave risks to document the stories that must be heard, as Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg did. Michael Yon is in that mould. Here’s to his work, and here’s to his safety.