Mary Madigan: "It’s almost always like this or worse when I run into actual members of the Hezbollah militia."

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
"It’s almost always like this or worse when I run into actual members of the Hezbollah militia."
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1168016608.shtml


   [1]Michael Totten confronts Hezbollah and interviews Shi'a teens in
   Beirut's Tent City.

     The first time I met Hussein Naboulsi, Hezbollahâs media relations
     liaison, he was perfectly friendly. But he later threatened me with
     physical violence because I cracked a joke about Hezbollah on my
     blog. On another occasion I was detained for two hours by Hezbollah
     because they suspected one of my photojournalist colleagues was a
     Jew...Chris Allbritton, who works on occasion for Time magazine,
     wrote the following on his blog during the July War: âHizbullah is
     launching Katyushas, but Iâm loathe to say too much about them. The
     Party of God has a copy of every journalistâs passport, and theyâve
     already hassled a number of us and threatened one.â

     This is how Hezbollah treats Western journalists. Iâd say Iâm
     surprised more journalists donât mention this sort of thing in
     their articles. But most journalists donât write first-person
     narratives. Industry rules generally donât allow them to describe
     these kinds of incidents. Even though it has been years since
     Hezbollah has kidnapped or physically harmed Western journalists,
     some may be afraid to rile up an Iranian proxy militia that is
     listed by the United States government as a terrorist organization.
     Hezbollah informed me that Iâm officially blacklisted (meaning they
     will no longer give me interviews or even quotes) for what I have
     written about them in the past.

     Some journalists donât want to burn bridges to their own access and
     make their jobs harder. I donât personally care. Last year I
     interviewed a high-level Hezbollah official, Mohammad Afif, but it
     was a useless interview that wasnât even worth publishing. My
     translator told me that what Afif said matched exactly
     word-for-word what Hezbollah says every day on their own Al Manar
     TV channel. Losing access to these guys isnât that big a deal. ..

   Other than his willingness to stand up to Hezbollah, what separates
   MJT's work from most other journalists is what winds up on the
   cutting-room floor. Most journalists would have featured the
   high-level Hezbollah official, while the teenagers would have rated
   maybe one clipped quote. One unscripted interview tells us much more
   than a whole newspaper full of predictable 'name' interviews can.

   The photographs tell a story too. It's important to note the
   near-absence of the Lebanese Cedar Flags that were so prevalent during
   the media-freindly rallies. In contrast, the yellow Hezobllah flag,
   with it's trademark raised Kalashnikov, is everywhere.

     ...I knew they wouldnât do anything to me, and I wanted to let them
     know that their bullying behavior just earned them bad press.
     (Israelis who hassle and rudely interrogate journalists in
     Ben-Gurion airport ought to learn the same lesson one of these
     days.) I scribbled my furious notes, looked them in the eye,
     scribbled more furious notes, looked them in the eye again, and
     scribbled more furious notes.

     Hezbollah is not half as media savvy as they like to fashion
     themselves. Harassing foreign journalists may keep some of them in
     line, so to speak, but it backfires with the rest of us. Bullying
     writers who are free of the old school media constraints of
     âobjectivityâ is a media war equivalent of dropping a hand grenade
     down your pants.

   Hezobllah's good at doing that..

   The old school media aren't as 'objective' as they pretend to be -
   they're willing to interview Hezbollah's leaders and to write what
   Hezbollah tells them to write, but they're not willing to challenge
   Hezbollah's authority. They refrain from pointing out that Hezbollah
   has no legitimate authority. Many standard journalists will say that
   objectivity means giving equal weight to both sides.

   That's not objectivity, it's not factual reporting, it's the
   journalistic equivalent of the Special Olympics. Everyone, even
   handicapped Hezbollah, gets an equal prize because, according to these
   'objective' journalists, everyone's equally special.

   It's not even clear how 'old school' this form of jounalism is - Ernie
   Pyle didn't give equal weight to the Nazi point of view. If you're
   going to fight a war, one of the first things you need to do is figure
   out who your enemies are and who your allies are. We're fighting an
   asymetric war, which means that 'sides' are not represented by
   national, ethnic or religious boundaries. Our constrained, handicapped
   journalism doesn't tell us what we need to know. We need more
   independent reports.

References

   1. http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001355.html