 Anne Garrels spent
Thanksgiving in Siberia. Before catching her plane, Garrels shared her
concerns about "trash" news, the need to keep journalists abroad, and
what it takes to be a foreign war correspondent.
AEJMC: What led you to a career in journalism, specifically
as a foreign war correspondent? Please share what it's like being a
foreign war correspondent away from home during wartime.
Anne Garrels: I fell into journalism because of my consuming interest in the
Soviet Union, as it was then called. I had no interest in being a "war
correspondent." Far from it, my interest was in covering the very Cold
War and living in the Soviet Union.
However, the world changed in the
mid 80s. Suddenly I was required in my neck of the world to cover more
and more wars as the former regimes fell apart. By default I became a
war correspondent. It was not something I had anticipated or yearned
for. But I developed experience, and understanding of how to cover
conflicts where increasingly we as journalists were pawns.
All of my experience made me the "perfect" candidate to wait out
what was clearly going to be a war in Iraq. I did not anticipate I
would stay for the bombing, not to mention five subsequent years, but I
was sucked into it. The longer I stayed the more I felt I had to offer.
It took a huge toll on me. I should not have stayed so long. You can
call it devotion or hubris. Both might be correct.
I am, however, incredibly fortunate that I have a husband who
supports what I do. Perhaps he worries what it will be like having me
home a great deal of the time! But joking aside, I do not have my own
children, though I have beloved step-kids. But I do not know many women
in the field who are mothers. In fact I don't know many women with
successful marriages in the field. I am incredibly lucky, but it is not
without its costs.
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AEJMC: Previous Keynote addresses have been given by Bill
Moyers, Marc Rotenberg and Carole Simpson. Each touched on the
evolution of journalism in one way or another. What do you see for the
future of journalism, specifically in your field, and what changes do
you think college programs need to make in order to stay relevant
today?
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AG: I am a reporter, plain and simple. I happen to think it is
incredibly important to be a witness on the ground. You can blog the
hell out of a story, and opine forever; but all of this is based on
information from the field. It is becoming increasingly pricey to be in
the field for security reasons, and it is increasingly dangerous for
reporters to cover the stories of our day. I worry that we will not be
there. I worry that "trash" news, as I frankly care to call it, will
dominate the major outlets.
Our world is an increasingly complicated one, and complicated more
by pundits, and opiners who pass themselves off as journalists.
Journalists, as imperfect as we are, report. We tell people what is
going on to the best of our ability, drawing on a range of sources.
It is not hard to learn the crude techniques of the trade, whether
it be shooting, recording, or computer skills. What is hard is being a
good writer, having a sense of history not to mention language skills.
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FIRST LOOK: DIG News January 2010
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AEJMC: You've reported from all over the world and have won
numerous awards for doing so. Given the state of the economy, budget
cuts, the flux of the news industry, the rise of social media, the AP,
et al, do you consider having a foreign war correspondent within a news
bureau to be more of a luxury or a necessity today, and why?
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AG: Covering a war is not about "bang bang" though TV loves to have drama
above substance. It is about why people are there, what are the goals,
how is the war being conducted. These are often subtle, not very sexy
stories. But they are the stories that count in the end. You can't just
parachute in and do these kinds of stories. You need to spend time, and
be a witness to do the job. So yes. I think despite spiraling costs we
need to keep people abroad.
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AEJMC: If a university approached you to create the perfect college
curriculum to train young journalists to become foreign war
correspondents, which classes would you include? In other words, what
kind of background and classwork should someone have under their belt
to be a successful foreign war correspondent?
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AG: You need to have a sense of history. That is key. The U.S. went into
Iraq with no sense of history, no sense of the culture, and it was
America's undoing there. It is great if you have language skills though
it is too much to ask of journalists that they always know the language
of the country they are operating in. I succeeded in the former Soviet
Union and the subsequent states because I knew Russian, but I think I
did well in Iraq thanks to a great Iraqi staff who acted as my
interpreters.
You can't train someone to be a war correspondent. It happens on the
ground. Experience, working with experienced colleagues is critical.
You can, however, help to train journalists to be good, accurate
witnesses, who are able to ask the right questions, to see what is not
obvious.
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Anne Garrels will provide the Keynote Address at the 2010 AEJMC
Denver Convention on August 4 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel.
Photograph by Stephen Voss. Courtesy of NPR.
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About Anne Garrels
Anne Garrels is a senior foreign correspondent for NPR's foreign desk.
She covered Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime and through the U.S.
invasion and its aftermath, and earned international recognition in
2003 by being one of 16 U.S. journalists to remain in Baghdad during
the U.S. bombing. Her experiences are chronicled in her book Naked in
Baghdad (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2003). Garrels graduated
from Harvard University in 1972. Anne Garrels lives with
her husband Vint Lawrence in Connecticut. Source: NPR
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About AEJMC
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication is a nonprofit, educational association of journalism and mass communication educators, students and media professionals. The Association's mission is to advance education, foster scholarly research, cultivate better professional practice and promote the free flow of communication.
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