News misjudgment
: Zeyad tells us that there were reporters all over the anti-terrorism demonstrations in Baghdad. So why wasn’t the story all over our media?
When we were marching on Dec 10 I told Omar that maybe we didn’t need to cover the protests after all since it looked like reporters from all the major media agencies were doing so. As you can see in my pictures there were scores of reporters and cameras all over the place. And since the rallies ended in front of the Palestine hotel we thought that it would be impossible for the media to ignore this event. I felt a bit awkward walking along reporters carrying just a little digital camera while they had all the equipment.
The last thing we expected was to be the first to publish anything about the protests. It felt both good and awful at the same time. Good for scooping Reuters, AFP, AP, and other wire services and media stations. And awful for the people that depended on these services for their news. I’m telling you there were reporters from every station in the world at the demos that day and yet only a few mentioned them at all.
: Glenn Reynolds thinks I was a little tough on the Rocky Mountain News reporter who used the demonstrations as incidental background for the story of me-me-me-in-Baghdad. Naw. The reporter found the demonstration only because his translator happened to take him there. And once there, he should have spoken with the demonstrators. This was a good story and he didn’t have the nose for the news.
: See the rest of Zeyad’s post. And note that I should have gotten a larger memory card for the camera.
Anyone who wants to send cameras or supplies to Zeyad and the Iraqi bloggers, perhaps we should team up on a shipment. Leave a comment….
