From the editor
The news from Afghanistan is harrowing, with thousands of desperate people — including many Afghan journalists newly targeted by the Taliban — trying to flee the country. The bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghans on Thursday near Abbey Gate, a main entrance to Hamid Karzai International Airport, only increased the already pervasive sense of terror.
The horrific scenes at the airport raised haunting parallels with the evacuation at the U.S. embassy in Saigon. But Nieman Reports columnist Issac Bailey argues that, for journalists, the best comparison with what’s happening now in Afghanistan is not Vietnam in 1975 but the fall of Baghdad in 2003.
Bailey recalls the heady coverage of April 9, 2003, when U.S. soldiers pulled down an iconic statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Far from signaling a decisive military victory, however, that event marked the beginning of a long and brutal war, motivations for which were not sufficiently questioned in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
As the political recriminations begin around America’s chaotic Afghan exit, Bailey asks, “Why didn’t we do a better job in 2003 to help our audiences understand that the decision to enter Iraq was always going to affect what was happening in Afghanistan? ... Which are the quiet voices that need amplification to provide perspectives that are missing from our coverage today?”
Also for Nieman Reports, Celeste Katz Marston profiles six local news outlets helping audiences understand the places sometimes dismissed in national conversations as “flyover country.” These newsrooms seek to overturn a corrosive dynamic — a shrinking local media mixed with imprecise, city-crafted spot coverage — that has contributed to polarization and media distrust.
As Farai Chideya, host of the "Our Body Politic" podcast, says in Marston’s piece: “What I think is culturally competent, [and what] I'd like to see more of, is people [being] empowered to cultivate long-term sources in rural communities that they treat with the same respect that they treat sources on Capitol Hill.”
Sincerely,
James Geary
Editor, Nieman Reports
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