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Wow. Tunku Varadarajan asks some really good questions about the rescue of Stephen Farrell:
That said, let us put moral questions to one side and ask what--now--the duty of The New York Times is. What price should it pay for the trouble caused by its reporter? Here's my answer: If The New York Times really does subscribe to this philosophy--the public's right to know, the journalist's duty to be skeptical of authority, etc.--it should reimburse the British government for the cost of the mission to save Farrell (even if it means taking another loan from Carlos Slim) and compensate the dead soldier's family. (That it should compensate handsomely the family of the Afghan interpreter who died is not even open to discussion.) After all, the military has quite enough on its plate not to have to worry about extracting reporters from deadly contretemps of their own making.
Farrell took a huge risk on behalf of his for-profit employer to give it an edge in the news business. Afghanistan is an extremely competitive beat; and war and competitive journalism make for a very perilous--and profitable--alloy. So whereas one would be loath to corral and stifle reporters, why can't there be some financial incentive for journalists to behave responsibly when they venture into battlegrounds? Why not bill publications for the cost of a rescue and require journalists to give half the royalties from any books they write to the military, in the event of a costly rescue?
Come on Andrew, these are BS statements. If the military was a "for profit" company, sure, it should seek reimbursement. But it's not. The military's responsible for supporting and protecting its nation's interests and principles, among which is the occasional irresponsible journalist, businessman, or tourist who happen to be in the wrong place and in the wrong time.
If you want to extend this anecdote to its true endstate, then the state of New Orleans owes a few billion to the US Army because of the irresponsible planning for and response to a Category 4 hurricane about four years ago. How about it? You think there's any chance of getting those funds reimbursed?
Wonder if the people reading AM would agree with this, or if its simply a reflection of the distance of society as a whole.
Embedded here is a broader question regarding the costs and benefits of war reporting. As the Farrell tale demonstrates, journalists tend only to consider the benefits, but not the costs, of their actions. This is a problem in a country like the U.S. in which the majority supports the military in its endeavors, but the press is disproportionately from a minority that reflexively dislikes the military and is suspicious of its motives--and so intuitively discounts the costs of journalistic actions to the effectiveness of our forces.
Now that the first groups of vets from '02-'03 should have finished out their undergrad, I'm waiting for the first real good book on someone speaking about their experience integrating into college with their peers (or actually their younger peers in most cases) and greater society. Of course maybe one is out there and I haven't heard about it yet. Are the press really a disproportionate minority or a reflection of.... us, especially on covering the war(s)?
And to be far, the ideatof having your cake and eating it to, applies to a lot of people in this country, not just journalists and the corporate minders.
um, i dont think covering afghanistan is that profitable for newspapers. indeed, it's quite expensive to send reporters over there. covering celebrity gossip is far more cost-effective, i'm guessing.
NYT loses an unbelievable amount of money by covering Iraq and Afghanistan they way it does.
What to make of a column like that? Tunku Varadarajan hasn't the first clue whereof he writes.
Let's start with his basic premise: that the New York Times send journalists to war zones in order to bolster its bottom line, and that Farrell is a war correspondent for the same reason. If that were the case, we'd see a heck of a lot more correspondents in Afghanistan, no? Instead, it's been an under-covered war. The truth is that war coverage is generally a net loss for any newspaper, and that the loss is far steeper when a paper elects to send a reporter into the field instead of simply embedding him within a unit. The Times, and other newspapers, use their other sections and operations to subsidize the newshole. But lately, most papers have been eliminating their foreign correspondents, because they can't afford them any more. As for Farrell, I have to assume that if Varadarajan thinks war correspondents are in it for the money, he's never actually met one.
Which brings us to his further stupidity: "So whereas one would be loath to corral and stifle reporters, why can't there be some financial incentive for journalists to behave responsibly when they venture into battlegrounds?" Financial incentive to behave responsibly? As if the enormous risk to life and limb weren't sufficient? If Farrell was willing to put his neck on the chopping block to report the story, the thought of a rescue fee wasn't going to deter him. Nor should it have. War zones are tricky places. Simply going to Afghanistan is an enormous risk. Farrell went where he did, and did what he did, because he thought he'd assessed the risks and that, on balance, the story was worth it. And he may well have been correct. Varadrajan is committing the retrospective fallacy. The key question is whether Farrell, knowing what he knew then, ought to have pursued the story, not whether he would have gone in pursuit of it if he knew he would be kidnapped. (Hint: He wouldn't have.) I have to assume that Farrell didn't think he was being reckless; that he didn't expect to be kidnapped. So why would different incentives have changed his behavior?
And then, there's the insulting presumption that soldiers fight for pay. The dead soldier's family doesn't need more 'compensation' than it has already received - it needs the thanks of Farrell and the Times, and of a grateful nation. And it has received them. That soldier died in the execution of his mission - a mission that was, in most respects, successful. That's more than can be said of most casualties of the war.
Sometimes business school professors can be amazingly dense.
I think I'm somewhere in between:
Journalists, like soldiers, fall victim to combat arrogance. "I've done this before lots of times and nothing bad happened, so it must be OK to do it again." That doesn't mean their decision was rational.
I don't think the British had any obligation to go rescue the journalists from their bad decision.
However, once they decided to conduct the rescue, their soldiers were acting for the UK, not the NYTs.
And short of any blatant misconduct by soldiers during the rescue, the UK earns the credit for the rescue and the enemy is responsible for the deaths.
How much money does Jessica Lynch owe the U.S. government then - or them to her, or to Pat Tillman, considering how extensively those incidents were manipulated for propaganda purposes? Or, similarly, any notable individual who was ever rescued from a life-threatening situation by a fireman, police officer, first responder, etc. and later went to profit in some way (and most do not, obviously) from the rescue? Those who undertake these rescues, especially those in SF capacities, are aware of the risks - that's what they signed up for, and in many cases, what they live and often die for.
Also, agreed to everyone else who rightly criticizes the author's points on the "profitability" of this sort of journalism. It is a major loss for these media outlets, and what's crazy is that if the author genuinely believes that public service is an element in the journalistic philosophy of the NYT or whoever, the fact that they take a financial loss simply reinforces the fact that this journalism is a public service and should not be subject to compensation to the military and whatnot.
Well, Lynch and other soldiers have been rescued by their own colleagues - so it is an "in-house expense" so I think your analogy falls apart.
But still, should every citizen reimburse his/her government if expenses are incurred to pull them out of a sticky situation? Where does it end?
what price do you put on a British commando's life? How much should NYT be made to pay? These are ridiculous notions. Also how do we know the NYT reporter was behaving 'irresponsibly'? Reporting from a war zone is a dangerous business, and it doesnt mean you are irresponsible, but bad things happen in war, responsible or not.
I commend the NYT for actually having journalists on the ground, doing their job in the face of such danger.
@Ryan: understood, but Varadarajan seems to be linking some element of personal or corporate profit to the rescue itself, and Jessica Lynch undoubtedly profited from the rescue (but, as I point out, so did the government - in propaganda terms, it was worth many times what she herself made from her notoriety, which is why I also included Pat Tillman). So things are kind of blurry there, I suppose. My point was more that concepts of "profit" and whatnot are simply irrelevant to these circumstances, which is why your rhetorical question is spot on. Rescues are motivated (and should be motivated) only be altruism.
Also, I'm disinclined to defer to the credibility of someone who writes "...but the press is disproportionately from a minority that reflexively dislikes the military and is suspicious of its motives--and so intuitively discounts the costs of journalistic actions to the effectiveness of our forces." That's just utter BS.
Agreed
yep.
Is a Member of Salafi Web Site a Contributor to Flashy English-language Cyber Jihadi Journal?
When you say there is no profit in the NYT reporting, have you considered the political "profit" that comes from it?
I have noticed in my time things were reported "without bias" today the NYT is nothing more or less than a political platform available to the highest bidder. Just like the CT, the LAT, and the SFH.
Off topic: Interesting post by Old Blue:
http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2009/09/what-victory-looks-like-...
The unwritten assumption that Varadarajan and many others make is that because they were told not to go, they shouldn't have. I seem to recall Gen. McCrystal was told by the Germans not to visit the site, and yet he did so anyway.
Jon Krakauer's book on Pat Tillman
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112816210
Billing news media for the cost of saving human lives makes as much sense as billing sailboat race organizers for Coast Guard rescues when a competitor is in danger. Sometimes the cost of saving lives is not reimbursable for humanitarian reasons. Even the stupid deserve to be saved free of charge
Apologies for cross-posting this on SWJ, and posting this on a more active thread as well, but I want to be assured (as much as possible) of reader response:
Would members be willing to give their opinions on the best diplomatic and military history programs in the English-speaking domain (e.g., US, UK, and Canada?
I'd apply strictly to strategic and war studies programs if given the choice, but fear they'd transfer poorly to the academic job market than a "straight" history degree.
Thanks
OutletClock
I'd hate to think anyone running a blog would be supporting this argument. After all, should Yon or Axe get kidnapped, paypal will make it real fkn easy to gauge exactly how much their lives are worth and it'll come nowhere near what you think NYT owes.
The "they were warned" idea seems particularly retarded. It'd be acceptable it if you promised to argue that dead US tourists killed by terrorists don't count on the same grounds, but you won't. Meanwhile, if getting warned not to go somewhere by the US government was supposed to be binding on a reporter, then the world would be a very boring place.....
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html
You would actually know what happened in Poland today. Who the hell wants that ?
OT but should be of interest:
http://www.ejiltalk.org/usnato-targeting-of-afghan-drug-traffickers-an-i...
Stupid comments from an obscure professor who obviously thinks money grubbing is the end-all and be-all of existence, introduced by vapid comments by the blog author. Neither seems to understand the difference between the doughnut and the hole.
If AM doesn't understand why that reporter was there and why he was doing important work, one wonders what else he doesn't understand and why his opinions WRT employment of military forces should be given any credence.
"If AM doesn't understand why that reporter was there..."
I don't understand why you are here. I thought you declared this space worthless and underserving of you further patronage weeks ago, and more than once.
"vapid comments by the blog author."
Still, it is good to see someone for once sorting out their own backyard before criticising the blogs of others. I assume you kicked that Hilzoy to the curb for the similarly vapid crap she was writing in lieu of being able to bring herself to level any kind of objective criticism whatsoever at the Democrat in Chief, for continuing the exact same policies she made a business out of criticising ad nauseum for years under Bush.
This of course is why your opinions on what constitutes vapid, self-serving commentary are worthy of such credence.
Publius used to be insightful but has eschewed intelligent comment for invective and bitterness.
"the press is disproportionately from a minority that reflexively dislikes the military"
Wealthy upper-class vaguely right-wing white guys? Yes, that's the hard core of anti-military sentiment all right.
@Kilo: Wrong Publius. I have nothing to do with Hilzoy. FWIW, this blog is anything but worthless. The blog host is exceedingly talented and often quite interesting; unfortunately, he seems to have tailed off since the new affiliation.
@Visitor 6:10AM: "Used to be insightful"? Gee, can't invective and bitterness be insightful? And, FYI, there was no invective or bitterness in my comment. Merely sadness that this talented blog author doesn't seem to understand the value to us all of having members of the free press doing their thing.
Both: Haven't drunk the Koolaid. Do I have issues with professional COINdinistas? You bet. Sorry.
Publius: We have communicated for a long time. You *are* in danger of becoming a grumpy old man.
"If AM doesn't understand why that reporter was there and why he was doing important work, one wonders what else he doesn't understand and why his opinions WRT employment of military forces should be given any credence." is a typical snark.
Publius -- sorry, I mistook you for someone else. Invective and bitterness can, of course, be insightful, but in your recent posts appear mutually exclusive.
The USCG may not be sending bills, but the State of NH _is_ sending bills for mountain rescues. I don't see that this is all that different, particularly when the reporter has been warned not to go in the first place. See here: http://jocosarblog.typepad.com/jocosarblog/2009/07/negligent-hiker-gets-...
"Kilo: Wrong Publius."
Oh. Well knock yourself out then hehe.
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