Spin, PR and Truth in Reporting
Sunday December 11 2004
Donna McLachlan: One journalist who has a passion for
finding the truth at all costs is Australian, Michael
Ware. He's the bureau chief for Time magazine for
Baghdad. And as you'll hear in this interview, has
very clear ideas about how he gathers facts for a
story.
I've included the preliminary chat that I usually do
with interviewees, in order to set a sound level,
because in this case it's already setting the scene
for the way Michael Ware works.
Michael Ware: Actually it's another typical day in
Baghdad. Not a cloud in the sky, warm and balmy and a
bit hazy. I'm sitting here in the room of my house
surrounded by armed guards—is that enough of a level?
Donna McLachlan: That's amazing. Great. So, I wanted
to start by asking you about the fact that you're
sitting on top of one of the biggest stories in the
world right now. How mindful are you of wanting to
get the whole story and tell as much of the story you
can into print?
Michael Ware: Look, that's foremost in my mind. This
is in some ways a defining issue for us right now,
this American war being fought Iraq. So to try and
understand exactly what's happening here and to try
to fathom what is the dynamic that is really driving
this war, both here on the ground in the Iraqi desert
and beyond the confines of Iraq—it's vital. We, the
public, need to understand this, because this is
being done in our name. But we're the ones—and it's
our sons and it's our daughters who are bearing the
costs of this. So if we just rely on one voice for
our understanding of this story, then we're not doing
ourselves a justice. We need to hear as many voices
as possible from all sides of this conflict, so that
we can really come to know what is happening here. We
don't want a sanitised version, we don't want a
propagandised version. So that means there is
enormous obligation on the journalists who are here,
in my opinion. And I feel the weight of this
personally to get out there and go beyond and find
what we can see of the truth. And we can only ever
hope to capture shards of the truth. Little windows,
or vignettes. But I feel that we've got to gather as
many of them as we can and present them, and try and
give as accurate a sense of the big picture as is
humanly possible in the midst of a war.
Donna McLachlan: Is that why you chose to make a
relationship with Iraqi insurgents—to show a bigger
shard of that story?
Michael Ware: Absolutely. This conflict has at least
two sides. Indeed, there are many others. From the
beginning, after the initial invasion, I quickly
turned my attention to what would the Iraqis do, and
specifically what would become of an insurgency, that
I just knew was going to emerge. So by developing
contacts from the former regime of Saddam Hussein, I
was able to slowly begin to meet some of those senior
military officers and intelligence agents and
security officials who were holding out, and who way
back in May 2003 were then just starting what was an
embryonic insurgency—very loose-fitting, very ad-hoc,
very opportunistic and anything but sophisticated and
organised. But by tapping into them at that point,
trying to understand ideas that were continuing to
resist and how they were doing that, I've been able
to follow them and mark their progression, and
document the evolution of not just these individuals
but of the insurgency itself. And in doing that, that
adds incredible value to our reportage and
understanding of the war here.
If we rely on the US military to tell us about them,
if we rely on the US military to give us insight into
their enemy, then that is not a real picture. I
wanted to hear from them what they were doing and why
they were doing it. And not surprisingly, when you
put the two pictures together, from what the
Americans are saying and from what the actual men who
are doing the fighting were saying—they were markedly
different. The Americans from the beginning badged
them as 'terrorists', trying to throw them into the
same pot as al-Qaeda and the men who pulled off
September 11—when indeed, nothing could be further
from the truth at that time. And it became very clear
these were not terrorists fighting for Islam, they
were nationalists fighting to free their country from
a foreign occupier, and making that distinction was
vital.
Donna McLachlan: Have you ever disclosed a secret in
your stories for the greater good of 'the truth'?
Michael Ware: No, I haven't. The American military,
for example, is very adept, when dealing with
journalists, at preventing them from obtaining
secrets or being made privy to information that would
be useful to an opponent. So with the insurgents, I
made it very clear to them as well, that I expected
nothing but the same. Indeed, I've gone to some pains
to ensure that I don't have secrets. I don't want
what military people call 'actionable intelligence'.
I don't want to have access to information that would
be militarily valuable, so I don't want to know about
forthcoming operations, I don't necessarily want to
know where your secret places are. So even if I'm
taken to these places—I've been blindfolded, I've
been shipped from car to car, I've been
disorientated, I've had all many of guises to prevent
me from knowing the exact location or the exact
identities of the people I'm meeting with. So no,
anything that is fed to me, anything that is shown to
me, either by the US military or the insurgents, is
on public record.
Donna McLachlan: How has the language of reportage
changed for you, given that you are dealing quite
often with Arabic and Arabic speakers—has your style
changed dramatically since you started reporting from
Baghdad?
Michael Ware: No, not particularly. I spent some time
reporting, for example, from East Timor, or from
Indonesia. And I actually lived in Afghanistan for
over a year. And I've now been here in Iraq
essentially since January 2003—months before the war.
So trying to report in a foreign language from a
foreign culture, pointedly being an Islamic, eastern
culture—has not changed my style of writing nor my
style of reporting. But obviously I've had to learn a
whole new dialogue. I've had to learn an whole range
of ways to express myself and to be able to
culturally immerse myself in the milieu here. If I
can't do that, then I can't gain the access that I'm
getting.
Donna McLachlan: Is that, for example, about growing
a beard? What other examples would you say …
Michael Ware: Yes, it's growing a beard. It's
learning just a few phrases, either in Afghanistan it
was in Pashkin language. Here it is in Arabic.
Learning some religiously significant phrases or
customs, coming to innately understand how things
occur. And it's even things like body language.
Knowing how to stand before a senior commander, or a
senior imam. How to show deference and respect
without any hint of subjugating myself. It's all
about very subtle cues and non-verbal expressions in
some ways. But by being able to do that, by being
able to immediately engage in a dialogue that is
familiar to them, it's a sign of faith and it's an
engagement that they immediately respond to.
Donna McLachlan: Michael Ware was speaking to me by
satellite phone from Baghdad, Iraq. And you can read
his reports in Time Magazine.