The
reporter’s battle: Objectivity and independence on the frontlines
in Afghanistan
by
Allison Cross
November 12, 2007
Jas Johal reporting in Afghanistan in
June 2006. Photo by Jeff Stephen.
On his most recent visit to Afghanistan in June, Jas Johal met
a 27-year-old soldier from Kingston, Ont.
The soldier was married with a two-year-old son and expressed
dedication to his mission.
The two clicked right away and struck up a friendship, said
Johal, a television reporter for Global BC. At the end of his
six-week stay with the troops in the Kandahar airfield, Johal
packed up his belongings, said his goodbyes and left to return
to Canada.
On July 4, six Canadian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter were
killed when their armoured vehicle hit a roadside bomb. After
a detour on his return journey that cut him off from the news,
Johal arrived home in Vancouver to find out one of the dead
soldiers was his friend, Capt. Matthew Dawe.
“There was only a month left before [Dawe] was going to
go home,” Johal said. “For the first time, it really
hit me.”
Johal realized he had significant footage of Dawe out on patrol
and decided to put together a segment about the soldier. It
aired on Global National and implied a close relationship between
the two men.
“You do your best to provide an accurate, objective view
of what’s happening there,” he said. “But
it affects you.”
Johal’s experience getting to know Dawe and sharing his
story with the world isn’t necessarily characteristic
of journalists reporting from Afghanistan, who do their best
to maintain some distance from their subjects. But reporters
sent to the conflict live directly with the troops, who in turn
feed them and give them a place to sleep, write and edit. Journalism
ethics are a constant issue because journalists must report
critically and objectively on the soldiers who work to keep
them alive and have to navigate the wishes of military public
officials who make it tricky to tell the whole story.
“In a perfect world, you’d want to live separately,”
Johal said. “That’s the toughest part. We go on
patrol with these troops. You’re there to ask critical
questions, but at the same time, they are responsible for your
safety and security.”
Reporters who take a hard line with their interview subjects
or pursue controversial stories can’t help but wonder
if their tactics will result in decreased access to patrols
and meetings.
Johal said it’s only natural to expect journalists embedded
with troops to produce stories about soldiers, but these journalists
also have a responsibility to expand their coverage.
This sometimes means hiring a fixer – a local guide and
translator – in Kandahar and taking to the streets without
protection.
“When we’re gone, we’re on our own,”
Johal said. “We’re in the city doing interviews
as much as possible. We do make a conscious effort to go out. You
need to be on the front lines.”
Reporters might make the extra effort to find the untold story,
but it’s the responsibility of their newspapers and networks
at home to release the content, said Chris Waddell, an associate
professor of journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa.
“The ironic situation is that reporters might actually
end up giving a sanitized version of war because legs that are
blown off or incinerated, those images are deemed too disturbing
to put on TV,” Waddell said.
Still, the concept of embedded journalists has been around since
World War II, he said, and reporters today enjoy significantly
more freedom in what they can print or show on TV.
“In embedded situations, you can’t report on issues
of military significance and you can’t report on things
that might benefit whoever the enemy might be,” Waddell
said. “You can’t report on casualties before the
family has been notified.”
Jonathan Fowlie, a Vancouver Sun reporter who spent
six weeks in Afghanistan in the spring reporting for CanWest
News Service, said it isn’t uncommon for military public
affairs officers to recommend stories or ride along with journalists
on patrol.
“There were a few times where I wrote things I was told
not to write,” Fowlie said of the military’s close
watch on the stories he pursued. “There was a bit of a
distressing trend I wasn’t all that happy with.”
When one public affairs officer was unable to accompany Fowlie
on a patrol, he asked Fowlie to email him his story before it
was published so he might check for factual inaccuracies.
After a talk with his editor, Fowlie agreed to send his story
to the officer and the CanWest News Service desk in Ottawa at
the same time. When that officer came back with requests that
he take out a quote and change the wording in a couple of paragraphs,
Fowlie said no. Without any factual errors or details that might
put the troops in danger, he wasn’t about to change the
story.
“I told him, ‘I don’t feel anything you’ve
asked for is valid,’” Fowlie said. “I printed
it and it was fine. And the issue was, if you want to go out
with the troops you have to go through [that officer]. I just
didn’t like it.”
Fowlie knew his desk in Ottawa was ready to back him up, in
case his decision to publish the story got him kicked out of
his post.
“What if I had a desk that wasn’t willing to back
me?” he said. “If you stand on principle and get
kicked out, it means your papers don’t have coverage.
And you have to live with that. My desk was behind me 100 per
cent. I think most desks are like that.”
ALLISON CROSSis
completing her Master's in Journalism at the University of British
Columbia. Her work has appeared in The Province, the Nanaimo
Daily News, the Ottawa Citizen, The Tyee and the Victoria Times-Colonist.
She has a degree in English language and literature from Queen's
University.
