From Marc Lynch, 

Tyson and Chandrasekaran were both frank about the limitations of trying to speak to Iraqis or Afghans from within a military embed (hopping out of a military vehicle and surrounded by large men with guns is not always the best way to strike up a conversation — through a translator — with locals).  The U.S. military’s decision to shift to a population-centric COIN strategy created more and better opportunities for such contacts, intriguingly. Both mentioned the great value of stringers, Iraqis who could get out into their communities, and who help constitute an effective overall team.  Such use of stringers is essential but raises its own problems, of course – including, not least, their own safety.    I pointed out my dismay at the number of books about Iraq written by even very good journalists which fail to quote or take heed of Iraqis themselves.  Anthony Shadid was brought up several times as an exception, but what makes Shadid exceptional is that he is, in fact, exceptional in this regard both in terms of his Arabic language and his access (ditto Nir Rosen and a few others).

As I mentioned earlier this month when reflecting on some work I did in Garissa, Kenya’s North Eastern Province, the use of stringers seems like an increasingly appealing option for gathering news for an international audience. As a White female foreigner and Westerner, Somali men were not interested in sharing their difficulties as honestly or as readily as they might have with a Somali reporter writing for both local and international press. In the long-run, stringers seem to a more fair and sustainable option. Building capacity of local reporters to file internationally, while cutting costs. The big clincher, of course, is how to protect stringers and give them due credit. 

Also – are there experiences where stringers have community/family allegiances that compromise their work. Thoughts?

Over the past few years, I have tried to sort out my career priorities and the merits of each. Essentially, I want long-term employment that allows me to travel. I want my curiosity – a bottomless resource – to be exploited by whoever may find it useful. I want my interests and experience in particular subjects to grow and expand. I would not mind becoming an “expert” in a few specific topics. My two keys to this “dream situation” have been journalism and development. Both, I continue to realize, have large limitations.

I was taking photos of the watering hole at the bottom of this post when a young Somali-Kenyan grabbed my camera and told me to leave. I was not taking pictures of his animals or of his living space and family. I was solely focused on getting a shot of the small sized-lake which was, surprisingly, brimming with water. My host told the man off and later recounted that there were certain expectations of wazungu – mostly that we were of American CIA origins. Particularly women since they are easier to trust with information. Apparently the BBC Somali Service, inevitably, implants certain ideas about Western cultures through reporting on American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

While not shaken by the incident – this seems to happen increasingly to me – I am frustrated by the overall setting. I am a foreigner in a country I am not always welcome in. My job – reporting on whatever may be around me – is often challenged by the fact that local populations do not want to be a part of the process. I can’t blame them, I would not want to be either. I can’t speak Somali; I am a woman. Despite being dressed in full Somali female garb, I am not readily accepted. As the wars continue in Iraq and Afghanistan, I remain a threat because of my skin color and foreign accent. Of course, all these facts are unsurprising. However, in the long-run, I can’t help but think that the closing of foreign media offices hopefully leading to more local stringers working on an international scale is a great development in media. This equation, though, leaves me out of a job.

The following day, I conducted a series of interviews in the Abakore Primary School. We were talking to students who had transitioned from mobile schools in the bush to the mainstream establishments. Two girls and two boys showed up for the interview. As it was my responsibility to gather and develop their stories, I asked them a series of questions in English, translated into Somali. The children though, partially terrified of my accent, foreign mannerism and white skin, were not keen on answering. Despite being pressed by their Somali interpreters, they remained mute for the most basic of questions. So, field-visits in development also have their limitations – once again, by the default of my skin color and accent, I alienate myself from getting any work done. I also become superfluous to the whole process. Perhaps that’s something foreigners working in host countries need to be reminded of regularly: we are not essential for anything. We’re just a part of the wheel – one that often causes other things to break down.

While not all regions in Kenya have proven to be this hostile to my work (I did some great interviews in Kisumu for example), I am regularly reminded that I should question my role in this country and its overall relevance. No matter what work you do as a foreigner – from local media to development – someone from the community can do it better (and cheaper).

I will be doing a bit of editorial advising over the coming months with The First Drop. However, in order for any advising to be done, we’re looking for a set of founding contributors!

Writing opportunities with The First Drop

We want to provoke passionate, informed and accountable discussion among Canada’s next generation of leadership. We plan to do this by supporting a slate of contributors with widely varying views, and pushing them to generate the most enlightening discussion possible. We are now accepting applications for the first round of contributors.

Contributors! We Want You!

We’re looking for about 20 people who will become the core of the community at The First Drop: our founding contributors, ready to roll as we launch in the next month or so.

Contributors will write 1-3 short articles a month on a topic that matters for Canada’s future. That’s the subject: Canada’s future. In any way you choose. Politics, business, civil society, it’s all good. From what perspective? Legal, artistic, entrepreneurial, military, academic or the snowboard shop. East, West or North (we don’t really have a South, do we?), you’re all welcome. Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Bloc, Green. C’mon in. We don’t care, so long as you can write a good, reasoned, reality-based piece and trigger a great conversation.

Actually, that’s what we really care about – the conversations that emerge from your writing. Have a voice, but no way to get it out there? TFD can be that way. Have a blog or book already? TFD can help you reach a bigger audience and draw in new perspectives. Just want to help us create a community of future Canadian leaders? Great.

Interested? Have a look at our Guidelines to get an idea of what we’re looking for, fire Brendan an email with any thoughts or questions, or just apply and let us know you’re interested.

A picture (courtesy of TMS Ruge) from my interview with Binyavanga Wainana on Friday in London. Blog & article to follow.

Some thoughts on the Kampala Riots: In Uganda, Twitter and Facebook challenge Western media hegemony.

A new dawn for tomorrow’s news. Where does success lie? In the non-profit sector:

America will never have a BBC. The government funding isn’t there. What we do have, though, is a tremendous increase in enthusiasm and initiative that, in the age of the Internet, counts for more than transmitters and printing presses. The retreat of the giant corporations and conglomerates is creating the opportunity for fresh structures to emerge. It remains to be seen whether foundations, wealthy donors, and news consumers will step forward to support them. (Nonprofit Web sites and public broadcasters, it is worth noting, are, in effect, partly subsidized by the public, through the tax deductions taken for the grants and donations made to them.)

I’ve picked up a small gig at a radio station in Australia. Basically, I’ll be on air once a month, from Nairobi, to talk about news from across the African continent. Feel free to send in suggestions.

Taking “specialization” to a new extreme:

It’s nice to be listened to. I guess. Maybe. Though I now find myself wondering whether I wouldn’t be better off shutting up.

I saw the first reports of Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter around 6pm. I ran a little script I threw together some weeks ago called “twitcent” to see just how many tweets would share the news. Twitcent takes advantage of the fact that Twitter gives a unique, sequential ID to each tweet to estimate the intensity of posting around certain terms. It retrieves a page of 100 search results for a particular search term – say “Michael Jackson” – and looks at the ID numbers of the first and last tweets listed. Take the difference of those numbers, and you get how many tweets were posted between search result #1 and #100. Divide, and you’ve got a percentage of tweets on the system in a discrete, small interval mentioning the term.

Is it accurate? I dunno. If my assumptions are right, it should be – if Twitter’s not always numbering sequentially, or if some large percent of tweets on the system are unsearchable, less so. Anyway, I ran several search terms through the engine and saw something I’d never seen before – search terms registering in double digit percentages, and the term “Michael Jackson” appearing in 13 – 20% of the tweets.

So I tweeted the following: “My twitter search script sees roughly 15% of all posts on Twitter mentioning Michael Jackson. Never saw Iran or swine flu reach over 5%” And then I went to make dinner.

When I got back online this evening, the tweet had been quoted in Wired News, the New York Times Bits blog, Washington Post’s mocoNews, and in the San Jose Mercury News.

Oh, wherever went that old-school journalism (actually, it never really did exist, did it?) where thorough research, lots of conflicting opinions, and delicious words are the main course? Must remember to stick to the more flexible art of magazine writing. Er, when I get there.

Donor and media get bored, post-conflict reconstruction fails. Thoughts from Paul Collier on TED Talk.

A very interesting read on the role of “hospitality” in the practice of journalism and online media. I was first struck by the intuition of the concept: journalists will generally take a “hospitable” approach in interviewing. The idea is to present yourself as just another person – which, ultimately, you are – and to ensure that the playing field is equal. Of course, this does not apply to every situation, but it does when doing in-depth and more personal interviews.

He proposes that we move beyond objectivity as a key journalistic valye towards hospitality. Objectivity as a gold standard makes sense when information is your goal. But if what you’re hoping to do is manage an inclusive conversation, perhaps we need different standards – we need to focus on whether spaces are hospitable to conversation.

In one sense, this does replace objectivity. Producing stories based on the raw reaction between two people offers much more to the reader than does the simple delivery of news (which some say is the objective approach). As mentioned in this article, journalism is both “ritual” and “transmission.” We both absorb the information put out, but we also reflect and react. News constructs our society and the global community.

On that note, as someone who used to support objectivity all the way, it is slowly becoming clearer and clearer that objective journalism offers a blank view of the world. It often does little to engage an audience in the public sphere(s). While one doesn’t want articles that present just one side of the story, one does want an article that tackles many facets and brings up the important questions in an artful and articulate way.

Back to hospitality. I found it interesting that this was linked to Global Voices, i.e. online social media. In one sense, social media destroys Habermas’ one-public-sphere and opens up a whole new means of talking to many communities. It means many public spheres, although with diminished individual power and influence. At the same time, hospitality is also hugely not a part of online social media. The Internet in itself allows humans to approach contentious issues from afar. We are no longer required to come together – physically – and share our values.

David Weinberger wonders why hospitality used to be such a critical part of our collective culture – the Old Testament is full of stories about hospitality. Why has hospitality slipped away? Is it because we’re experiencing the false intimacy of a globalized world? Lokman suggests that we’re seeing a paradox of choice emerging online – as we’ve got more choices, we often make decisions that isolate and cocoon ourselves. Part of this may come from the biggest way in which we isolate ourselves – we restrict the flow of people across national borders to a much greater extent than we restrict financial or cultural flows. Perhaps we’ve become better at accommodating a person’s CDs or movies, but less good at accommodating the person herself.

This type of interaction has a whole different effect on the human psyche, I like to believe, and therefore should be more encouraged, within the opportunities that the Internet offers. Perhaps the Internet and online social media can be that bridge between the two. In any case, his blog entry contains a whole pile of fun journalistic theories.