Published 29 Dec 08
By Abigail R. Esman
World Defense Review columnist
America's Lost Interest
I noticed it already in the summer of 2007. Editors at magazines began responding to ideas for articles about Iraq – any aspect of Iraq, from its art to the refugee crisis from the war and female suicide bombers to tales of families and even women's beauty rituals – with polite, but firm, disinterest.
"We've already done a story on Iraq this year," responded one (now-former) editor of a well-known weekly magazine.
"We're Iraq-ed out," replied yet another, and a third, "we've done several stories lately on women from abroad."
America, it seemed, was losing interest.
Now, it seems, America is downright bored. Book publishers have by and large stopped publishing anything on the subject, preferring Joe the Plumber. News agencies have called in their correspondents, citing a combination of budget and safety concerns and a dearth of "interesting" stories from the region.
Still our soldiers shoulder rifles every morning, far away from home.
Still, families tiptoe through their days in fear that each may be their last.
Part of this, too, comes from news overload: the news addiction that followed 9/11 and re-emerged during elections has faded, exhausted. Many now actually get their news from people like Jon Stewart, and refugees, rapes, and recoveries just aren't funny – and can't be made to be. And now, in a time of economic worry, women's magazines – which always shoot for the happy and upbeat even in the best of times – reach for service pieces: "Why Buy a New Home? Ten Decorating Tips To Make Your Current Home Into Your Dream Home In A Weekend For Less Than $100," they cry, or ""Beauty Secrets From your Own Kitchen" – you know the type. American women who can feed a family on $5 a day are interesting. Iraqi women who defy their culture, refuse fear, and work to save their family's futures – and their country's – despite death threats and attempted bombings of their homes, or who are kidnapped because their sister's husband's second cousin once worked for an American – no one wants stories like that. "Been there. Done that," the editors say. As if four stories in a year on Britney Spears' breakdown matter more.
True, Britney's breakdown is easier – and cheaper – to cover. And with audiences migrating from the late news to the Late Show, newsrooms – both print and broadcast – are finding their budgets dwindling, and were so even before the economic crisis. This explains, at least in part, the reduction in foreign coverage: notes Brendan Keefe, formerly of CBS News in New York and now an anchor at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati: "Even before the economic downturn, newsrooms were concerned with keeping reporters on the street. Travel budgets were cut -- we're not traveling anywhere. The University of Cincinnati is in the Orange Bowl this year and we're not even flying to Miami. So we're certainly not flying to Afghanistan."
Keefe made three trips to Iraq as an embedded correspondent for CBS. He knows that stories there still wait to be told; he considers it a "disservice to the people in service" that they are not. "Right now," he says, " I'm working on a story about bulletproof tires for Humvees – a really interesting story but I had to pitch it under the 'gee whiz' category, because pitching it under the idea of 'this is something that could help our troops' isn't going to gain traction in the newsroom. The perception is that the viewers aren't going to be interested. " Lieutenant Janeene Yarber, a public affairs officer at Camp Liberty, Iraq and previously a cameraman for NBC-News in New York, agrees. "'Iraq Fatigue' comes because the networks keep pushing the same stories on the public," she says. "When I worked for NBC, we kept pushing these stories about the violence, death and destruction. I understand that's the kind of thing that brings in revenue. However, the American public has no idea what-all goes on out here except the lethal stories. It's unfortunate that the soldiers and engineers out here put their lives on the line to just help bring communities of citizens the kinds of comforts we take for granted in our country – and that doesn't make the headlines."
But if it did make headlines, would Americans care? I think they would – in part out of human empathy, and in part because, as we spend $10 billion a month on this war few believe in anymore, we the people have both a right and an obligation to know where that money is going – and why. "The question that comes back from the Vietnam era," says Keefe, "is: why are we there? What is our goal? When do you declare victory? Who are we fighting for?" The idea that the story has been told already is a popular one, he says, but "I think it is more complex than the American viewer understands, and we haven't done a good enough job of explaining that it's not just about putting an extra pair of boots on the ground. The American people need to be informed about what we need to do and why and what our goals are. "
If he could, says Keefe, he would go back to Iraq, or travel to Afghanistan, and tell those stories, explain those situations that the public has yet to understand – because they matter. "When you sign up to do this, you say 'a free press is something worth fighting for,'" he explains. "People have died for it. A soldier with one gun can influence the way of battle; one journalist with a single camera can change policies based on the realities on the ground. And that can result in people making the correct decisions. We aren't responsible for the decisions made, but we are responsible for informing people so they make them intelligently."
In the newsrooms, however, where local events dominate dwindling attention spans and immediate crises absorb valuable column inches and broadcast minutes, such things are too easily forgotten. But at what cost?
"The media needs to be reminded," Keefe asserts reproachfully, "that if we're not there, the story doesn't get told. And if the stories don't get told, our secondary role is to be that news source for history. We are also historians, writing history as it happens. And if we aren't there, then the history isn't being written."
Is there a solution? To my mind, yes: If we can't send our own reporters to the region, then we need to hire reporters already there, protect them, and tell the stories they bring us. As Keefe says, the market for stories may play a role in the choice to tell them; "But if we don't tell them, there won't be a market: People won't buy the product if you don't make it."
And Keefe?
"I don't know what the solution is," he admits, "but I do know what the consequences are: that we really risk putting first and foremost the soldiers, marines, sailors at risk who are prosecuting the war because we are not covering what's going on, and we put ourselves at risk because we do not cover issues that affect national security. This is what the greater terrorist goal is: to wait till we're complacent and strike again. And I guess – not to wax too patriotic, but we have to call to mind those two words said after 9/11: 'Never Forget.' "
— Abigail R. Esman is an award-winning author-journalist who divides her time between New York and The Netherlands. In addition to her column in World Defense Review, her work has appeared in Foreign Policy, Salon.com, Esquire, Vogue, Glamour, Town & Country, The Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic and many others. She is currently working on a book about Muslim extremism and democracy in the West to be published by Praeger in 2010.
Visit Esman on the web at abigailesman.com.
© 2008 Abigail R. Esman
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