Christopher Dickey, who covers Iraq for Newsweek, has decided against carrying a gun when he’s in Baghdad. He doesn’t think it would make him any safer. But he recognizes that reporters are in danger there; 19 have died so far. And he’s increasingly unsure that it’s worth risking journalists’ lives to report the news from Iraq to an indifferent public. The TV networks have already cut their daily Iraq report to just over five minutes a day; and the public also seems to be losing interest. Dickey writes: “As my friend the newspaperman told me on a brief visit back to the States, ‘You talk to people here about what’s happening in Iraq and their eyes glaze over after two seconds. I mean, even members of your own family!'”
Dickey mentions deaths (of American military personnel and Iraqis) as topics that reporters do and should cover. But do we need such directly observed reports of violence in Iraq? Perhaps–failure to report casualties might give the impression that things were going better than they are, and it would prevent the public from mourning the dead. On the other hand, some might say that Americans are rightly somewhat inured to such stories. Perhaps we need a different kind of reporting: journalism that discusses deeper and more lasting issues.
I personally am not interested in detailed accounts of the latest car-bombings, but I do want to know how well Americans are doing at nation-buildng. If our soldiers and officers are doing a great job “on the ground,” that is a story that should be celebrated as a model for civic work at home. If things are not going well, we should learn from their mistakes. Journalism about nation-building would be dangerous, and it might be overlooked by many Americans; but perhaps it would be more valuable than blow-by-blow descriptions of violence.