chuckago

FROM ALLSPINZONE.COM

Molly Bingham's Iraq: “Not something my audience wants to see.”

Last year, photojournalist Molly Bingham and independent British journalist Steve Connors spent 10 months in Iraq working the “rest of the story” - primarily from the side of the Iraqi resistance. Bingham's mission - find out what makes resistance tick. The result - a documentary by Bingham and Connors that they're finding very difficult to market.

In this past Sunday's Louisville Courier-Journal, Ms. Bingham excerpted a speech she made last month at Western Kentucky University. The article is a broadside shot to the corporate media for not doing their jobs.

“And why”, might you ask, “should anyone listen to Molly Bingham?” ...

Beyond the fact that she has a compelling story to tell, she's earned her stripes under fire. You might have to dig way back in the memory banks, but she was one of the western journalists detained at Abu Ghraib by Saddam's regime at the beginning of the Iraq war. In early April, 2003, she was released, but turned right back around when the coalition marched into Baghdad, and started a stringer assignment for the New York Times.

Here's a couple of excerpts from her Courier-Journal article:

...But the basic point for this discussion is that we both thought it was really journalistically important to understand who it was who was resisting the presence of the foreign troops. If you didn't understand that, how could you report what was clearly becoming an “ongoing conflict?” And if you were reading the news in America, or Europe, how could you understand the full context of what was unfolding if what motivates the “other side” of the conflict is not understood, or even discussed?

Just the process of working on that story has revealed many things to me about my own country. I'd like to share some of them with you...

Unfortunately, I think Ms. Bingham is missing a key point - the vast majority of Americans don't want to understand. They don't want to know that a dozen Americans have been killed in Iraq in the past 72 hours, and hundreds of Iraqis have died in the past week - they want to be soothed with the assurances that the U.S. military killed over 100 insurgents in a major offensive against the resistance. And that's what the headlines from CentCom roared yesterday.

Our behavior as journalists has taught us very little. Just as in the lead up to the war in Iraq, questioning our government's decisions and claims and what it seeks to achieve is criticized as unpatriotic...

Are you listening, Judith Miller? I didn't think so. Ann Compton? Oh, that's right, you might have to give up your cushy seat on Air Force One if you actually engaged in journalistic endeavors beyond acting as a hand puppet for Scott McClellan.

And (once again), paging Eason Jordan to the white courtesy phone in the CNN lobby...

To seek to understand and represent to an American audience the reasons behind the Iraqi opposition is practically treasonous...

The intimidation to not work on this story was evident. Dexter Filkins, who writes for The New York Times, related a conversation he had in Iraq with an American military commander just before we left. Dexter and the commander had gotten quite friendly, meeting up sporadically for a beer and a chat. Towards the end of one of their conversations, Dexter declined an invitation for the next day by explaining that he'd lined up a meeting with a “resistance guy.” The commander's face went stony cold and he said, “We have a position on that.” For Dexter the message was clear. He cancelled the appointment...

This is quite a different picture than is being painted by the “usual suspect” stenos who report from hotel roofs inside the Baghdad Green Zone.

Between reporters like Molly Bingham and Dahr Jamail, the truth is out there. But it requires some actual legwork on a truthseeker's part to find it.

What's happened to the documentary that Bingham and Connors filmed last year in Iraq? It's collecting dust, in search of a distributor. Peter Cook at Reference Tone reported back in April:

...Meanwhile, I'm told by another source that “Dateline” executive producer David Corvo recently declined to pick up an hour-long documentary from photojournalist Molly Bingham, who spent four months filming with anti-American insurgents in and around Baghdad. “Really interesting footage,” I'm told Corvo said. “Not something my audience wants to see.”

So, am I right to assume that Dateline viewers are infinitely more interested runaway brides and Michael Jackson? Nevermind. I already know the answer to that question.

this post was collected (not written) by chuckago@yahoo.com