An excerpt from a speech by B.C. Conservative M.P. Jim Abbott features prominently at this post today:
The disgraceful failure of our major media’s Afghan mission/Coalition crazy/Bob Rae Update
…Canadian media coverage of Afghanistan for 10 years has been the equivalent of covering news in Canada and Canadian events by having three reporters driving around in a Vancouver police cruiser on Vancouver’s east side. What would that coverage tell Canadians about Canadians’ aspiration or the beauty of our land or our potential?..
But now we can see that Mr Abbott is merely the front-person for Terrible Terry Glavin (of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, amongst other things). From Mr Glavin at The Tyee, April 15 this year:
…
The way Canadians see Afghanistan is the way Afghans would see Canada if they had three or four reporters here who spent pretty well all their time in the back of a police wagon cruising Vancouver’s downtown east side. That’s not what Canada is about…
Via Terrible Terry. Somehow I don’t think he’ll be complaining to the estimable M.P. about plagiarism.
Update: Don Martin is a journalist–it’s never quite clear whether he’s a reporter or a columnist–from Alberta who has been to Afstan. He likes to play the role of a hard-bitten, cynical, old-school newsman (but with a sharp sense of humour) who just calls them as he sees them and takes no guff from no-one. Unfortunately his vision is rather limited. He’s basically all hattitude and little cattle. Here he defends the honour of our gallant and intrepid journalists (see my comments, the third and fifth):
Safety = a Canadian MP in Afghanistan
Upperdate: Terry Glavin (yet again), who writes so well (heck, that’s one reason why he’s a real journalist), puts a lot of things Afghan together at this post ending:
…The trouble with Martin’s view is that he is getting pissy and deliberately missing Abbott’s point, which is that any given time there are rarely more than three or four Canadian reporters in Afghanistan and as likely as not they’ll all be embedded with the Canadian Forces in Kandahar, and not embedded with the Afghan people.
Martin doesn’t help his case by bringing the memory of the Calgary Herald’s Michelle Lang into it, either. Michelle had enormous respect for Canadian soldiers but she wanted to write stories about the Afghan people, outside the wire. It was in her memory that the Calgary Herald ran a baker’s dozen of my essays from “outside the wire” (here’s just one), which is a news media euphemism for the entire, heartbreaking, splendid and terrific country we call “Afghanistan.” Some more stories about that country and its people would be a good place for Canada’s journalists to begin to make amends for the distorted picture they’ve given Canadians about that country.
To be comfortably embedded in the Ottawa press gallery and to bitch about politicians who can dish it out as well as take it is churlishness, not journalism. More journalism about Afghanistan, please. That’s the point Abbott was making.
It can be done. It’s not that hard. It’s not even all that dangerous. A young comrade from the Ubyssey, the student newspaper at the University of British Columbia, committed several acts of useful journalism [emphasis added] from Afghanistan, “outside the wire,” all by himself, here.
Another one of those posts that just grew.
Mark
Ottawa
Just came over from your links on NP Mark. Thank you and well said. Martin almost seems like a press box type journalist, well above the action and always somewhat at odds with the tempo and grind of the game.
The game. That actually is how he seems to see Afghanistan. A Canadian political game.
Maybe the man has wet brain if you get my Elgin Streetism.
Streetism aside, the problem is that almost all our journalists see Afstan simply as part of the great (and almost infinitely silly, good on Bobbety) Canadian political game.
Rather than a real war, involving real people, for real reasons–whatever one may think of them.
But our journos prefer to chuckle, chortle and giggle about what it all means on their Hill. Puffed-up fools and simpletons, with a supposed ability to “communicate”.
I would wager very few make over $100,000 a year. Which shows what they are worth in terms of real talent. And why they are desperately eager to show up on the CBC and CTV news networks, for which they get a few dollars more.
Cf. Greg Weston, recently fired by Sun Media
http://torontosunfamily.blogspot.com/2010/07/greg-weston-out.html
and now on the CBC. An extreme case, maybe he’ll get another print gig. Probably the Crvena Zvezda
Mark
Ottawa
I don’t remember names, but there’s another columnist (female) who writes fairly regularly about the concerns of the Afghan women. Maybe two columnists. At any rate, there’s a fairly steady flow of information about the Afghan situation with respect to women. Mr Martin should try reading the last couple of pages of the papers for which he writes (first section) on a regular basis.
Thanks for your kind comments, as always, Mark.
Let’s do remember as well that there have been reall good journos who have done their best in Af’stan under difficult circumstances: Matt Fisher, Christie Blatchford, Rosie DiManno, James Murray, Anthony White, Chris Wattie, Jonathan Montpetit (I shouldn’t have started this because I’ve probably left a couple good ones unnamed). . . even though they’re rarely out and about and beyond the wire.
Seems to me whatever or wherever Don Martin is commenting on,I just cannot refer to him as a journalist, he has to smear PMSH.
Wonder what PMSH did to offend the little man of stature and maturity. Cheers;
I was a part of one these sanitized VIP tours, though I didn’t know I was signing on to have one. I had expected I would actually see what was going on outside the wire, perhaps walking along a dusty Panjwaii road or touring Kandahar. I had no idea I’d be in lock-down.
I don’t think it’s fair to criticize the media. They’re feeding off the disinterest of the politicians in Ottawa, most like Abbott, who haven’t mentioned the mission in 2 years outside the context of torture-rendition-war crimes.
Many media are scared of going outside the wire. How do I know? They told me. They don’t want to go outside and risk being killed by an IED. Nor do their media employers back home want to run that risk. They can get their updates in the conference room at Canadian HQ by Milner.
There are some who go outside the wire all the time. Carolyn Dunn is one example, and of course Matthew Fisher is another. Louie Palu was out on embed while we were there.
Reporters can only report what they’re allowed to see. The military is accommodating to a point — but Don Martin has it right in some respects. VIP tours (not the regular embeds) eat up resources while they’re chauffeured around. And resources are strained. We were supposed to do a helicopter visit to the PRT but that was cancelled when literally not one helicopter in all of KAF could be spared.
Thank you Mr. Glavin for your posting here… “Let’s do remember as well that there have been reall good journos who have done their best in Af’stan under difficult circumstances: Matt Fisher, Christie Blatchford, Rosie DiManno, James Murray, Anthony White, Chris Wattie, Jonathan Montpetit…)
I read your own blog and articles regularly and feel that your name should be right at the top with Mathew Fisher on Afstan. You have taught us a lot.
Also Brian Hutchinson of Postmedia:
http://unambig.com/afstan-a-long-way-to-go-and-we-wont-be-there/
Mark
Ottawa
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