Jossiping With An Anonymous Reporter 37255

One of the things you hear, is that a reporter covering the war could be doing it remotely and just be getting dispatches.

I’ve read that verbatim. ‘Why aren’t [reporters] just [working] in New York because they’re not going out anyway?’ And it’s just so not the case. These criticism generally come from people with an ideological agenda who don’t we’re covering it accurately. They don’t believe they’re doing it in the right way. But journalists move around, journalists go on embeds, so they get to see firsthand the successes and failures of the military operation and they also drive around Baghdad, and interview people and go to stores and talk to people who are trying to live their lives. And you can see that in the stories. The fact that a story is about Iraqi civilians does not mean we were relying on an Iraqi to report it. The Iraqis who work for American media operations are phenomenal people, great journalists, incredibly brave and honorable guys. But they’re not doing all of the work for the Americans. They’re doing invaluable, amazing work. But the Americans are doing work as well.

So you were working while you were there?

A little bit.

Yeah, it seems like a 24-hour job

It’s just all the time. The amount of work is just baffling to me. Now that I’m here, and I think I work hard, it’s just nothing in comparison ??? There’s a constant level of tension. It’s not like when you come back to New York and you can flop down on your couch and you can chill out and watch TV when you’re off the clock. You’re always keeping your ears out for something, it’s always in the back of your mind that something bad could happen, either to you or to people you need to write about.

How did being connected with the internet change that? What is it like to be on Facebook in Iraq?

Well, it makes it much more bearable, the fact that you can connect easily with people here. For people who are not full time war correspondents, there’s some idea of what normal life is, and that’s a very American view point. It’s somewhat comforting to be able to have guilty pleasures.

So are you a Facebook or MySpace person?

I’m a Facebook person, but I have MySpace for reporting.

And what does an ace reporter eat for breakfast?

Well, this ace reporter doesn’t eat breakfast, either in Baghdad or the US. I’ve just never been a breakfast person.