Reporter Speaks on Iraq’s Effects

National Public Radio foreign correspondent Anne Garrels allowed for a moment of levity during her Monday lecture on covering the war in Iraq, telling the audience of about 60 at the McCormick Tribune Center the story of the “most unlikely of partnerships” between NPR and FOX News.

Garrels, who spoke as part of the Crain Lecture Series, said NPR had been struggling with power; they received electricity from Baghdad’s grid for only two hours a day.

Someone from FOX News offered to share the station’s generator with NPR, which Garrels said it initially rejected.

“My boss said, ‘Not on your Nelly,’ ” Garrels said. “But no FOX, no power and eventually saner minds prevailed. People do help each other out in Baghdad a lot.”

It was one of the lighter moments in Garrels’ hourlong Q-and-A session. The correspondent, one of 16 journalists who stayed in Baghdad during the initial days of the U.S.’s “shock and awe” campaign, offered a sober assessment of the current situation in the country.

“(The early days of the war) seem like child’s play compared to the horrors we’ve seen since,” Garrels said.

Garrels shared many of her experiences in Iraq, including seeing a family shot and killed by Blackwater Worldwide security forces after the family’s car failed to yield to a State Department public relations official.

Many people in Iraq who witness such events don’t realize the emotional toll to come, she said.

“The reaction comes later - suddenly you don’t handle things the same way,” she said. “In my case, I started drinking too much. I came home, and I couldn’t deal with it.”

Still, Garrels said she believes it is important to report from Iraq - she’s visited the country several times ­­­- and in 2003, Garrels wrote a book about her first trip to Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War, titled “Naked in Baghdad.” But now, she said she plans to take a break for several months.

“I was at my home out in the country, and there was a birthday party going on,” Garrels said. “We live by a lake, and someone set off some fireworks. I burst into tears and leapt into my husband’s arms, and I said, ‘You know what? Maybe it is getting to me.’ ”

Garrels offered her opinion on a number of issues relating to Iraq but saved most of her time talking about media coverage of the war.

She said the media face a number of issues on the ground, including some censorship by the U.S. government and trouble getting access to certain areas of the country.

But Garrels said one of the most difficult challenges is fighting for airtime for reports about a war that no longer interests many Americans.

“If anything, it’s easier for us,” she said. “We have two hours in the morning and evening. But to get a slot on the network news shows? It’s hard these days … and a lot of it comes down to ratings.”

By Dan Fletcher
danfletcher@northwestern.edu

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NPR has been cheerleading the slaughter since the beginning. They do not see it that way but being inbedded with the forces of oppressression and occupation tends to make one an active combatant, or cheerleader.
Combat is repressed but always there. Those who succed in repressing it go quite mad.