October 16, 2005: Headlines: COS - Togo: Iraq: Journalism: DesMoinesRegister.com,: Togo RPCV George Packer writes about Iraq for the New Yorker
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October 16, 2005: Headlines: COS - Togo: Iraq: Journalism: DesMoinesRegister.com,: Togo RPCV George Packer writes about Iraq for the New Yorker
Togo RPCV George Packer writes about Iraq for the New Yorker
A Yale graduate who served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, Packer has written about the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone, civil unrest in the Ivory Coast and the Al-Jazeera Arabic news network. He won two Overseas Press Club awards for his coverage of Iraq and of the civil war in Sierra Leone.
Togo RPCV George Packer writes about Iraq for the New Yorker
New Yorker staff skips Dubuque, heads to Iowa City
Magazine writers hit the road with campus conversations.
By REID FORGRAVE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
October 16, 2005
When Harold Ross founded the New Yorker in 1925, he famously said, the New Yorker will not be edited for "the little old lady in Dubuque."
Gee, Harold, thanks for the elitist snub.
But over the years, the magazine became one of the most esteemed in the world, increased circulation to more than 1 million and made amends with Iowa.
[Excerpt]
Tough to get full news amid violence in Iraq
George Packer, who will be featured at a roundtable discussion titled “Searching for the Story” at noon Monday at Iowa Memorial Union, has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since May 2003.
A Yale graduate who served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, Packer has written about the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone, civil unrest in the Ivory Coast and the Al-Jazeera Arabic news network. He won two Overseas Press Club awards for his coverage of Iraq and of the civil war in Sierra Leone.
His most recent book, “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq,” was published this month. Part of the book already was published in The New Yorker and is available at www.newyorker/archive.
Q. You've been to Iraq, Togo, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. Have you ever been to Iowa?
A. I went to Des Moines to meet the father of a soldier killed in Iraq, Kurt Frosheiser. Iowa was beautiful. We drove from Des Moines toward the Illinois border. It was gorgeous.
Q. What is it about Iraq that Americans don't understand?
A. It's been hard for Americans to accept how complicated it is there. Most Americans want an up-down, yes-no answer to whether we're right or wrong, succeeding or failing. Certainly the summer of 2003 when I was reporting that piece it was anything but simple. What interested me most was how Iraqis and Americans viewed each other. There were misunderstandings and suspicions, but a fair amount of good will on both sides and a desire to reach out and find out who these other people were. That has changed. The violence is so enormous.
Q. How would you change things if you had all the power?
A. I would force everyone to subscribe to The New Yorker. (He laughs.) It's so embedded now, it's hard to imagine any change that someone who's all-powerful could enact. People are busy. Television dominates. Television works by dramatic images and sound bites. The long magazine article or book has a very hard time making itself heard in this clamor of talking heads.
Q. How do you cut through that?
A. All you can do is report and write honestly and well and hope people respond. People I hear from feel let down by both politics and media. I get letters saying it's so difficult to find balance and depth, so difficult to know what's really going on there. People are not rioting in streets, but this is a more partisan age than Vietnam. People just kind of want to know which team you're on. It takes an active, individual, strenuous effort (to open one's self to understanding). Everything in our culture is conspiring to close it.
Q. What is it about Iraq that the American media isn't reporting?
A. It's not that they're not reporting it. I read the Times, the Post, the newsweeklies, the monthly magazines, and there's a lot of information. The biggest problem reporting in Iraq is you can't talk to Iraqis without putting yourself and them at risk. You can't walk the streets or go to a restaurant or go to someone's home. So inevitably the point of view of the Iraqis starts to disappear in stories. Honest journalists say they don't know what's going on with Iraqis in this stage of the war. So many parts of Iraq journalists just can't go. Every journalist has the nightmare of kidnapping in the back of his mind.
When this story was posted in October 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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| 'Celebration of Service' a major success The Peace Corps Fund's 'Celebration of Service' on September 29 in New York City was a major success raising approximately $100,000 for third goal activities. In the photo are Maureen Orth (Colombia); John Coyne (Ethiopia) Co-founder of the Peace Corps Fund; Caroline Kennedy; Barbara Anne Ferris (Morocco) Co-founder; Former Senator Harris Wofford, member of the Advisory Board. Read the story here. |
| PC apologizes for the "Kasama incident" The District Commissioner for the Kasama District in Zambia issued a statement banning Peace Corps activities for ‘grave’ social misconduct and unruly behavior for an incident that occurred on September 24 involving 13 PCVs. Peace Corps said that some of the information put out about the incident was "inflammatory and false." On October 12, Country Director Davy Morris met with community leaders and apologized for the incident. All PCVs involved have been reprimanded, three are returning home, and a ban in the district has since been lifted. |
| Why blurring the lines puts PCVs in danger When the National Call to Service legislation was amended to include Peace Corps in December of 2002, this country had not yet invaded Iraq and was not in prolonged military engagement in the Middle East, as it is now. Read the story of how one volunteer spent three years in captivity from 1976 to 1980 as the hostage of a insurrection group in Colombia in Joanne Marie Roll's op-ed on why this legislation may put soldier/PCVs in the same kind of danger. |
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Story Source: DesMoinesRegister.com,
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Togo; Iraq; Journalism
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