credit where credit is due

God knows I’ve got plenty bad to say about the new(ish) Nightline, but some credit has to go to reporter Jake Tapper and producer Zoe Magee for a piece on Tuesday that was billed as a story about a sitcom, shot in Baghdad, starring the “Iraqi Danny Devito” (they did say that a few too many times, and, yes, he’s really, really short).

You can read a written account, very much like the story that aired, here, but the gist of it is that Tapper and Magee went looking for a “good” story about Iraq and came upon Amjad Hamid, the head of entertainment programming for Iraqi TV. Hamid directed them to the shoot for this sitcom, and the ABC team set out to tell one of those golly gosh stories about humanity and its quest for normalcy against a backdrop of chaos.

One problem, the chaos got in the way.

As Tapper tells it, both in print and on Nightline, less than an hour after their arrival on location to watch the sitcom shoot, a call comes in to the producer, informing him (and he, in turn, informs everyone else) that Amjad Hamid, the guy who had set this whole story up, had just been assassinated.

Tapper concludes:

It is American journalists' duty to try to look at the broader picture in Iraq - telling the stories about those brave souls who seek to restore normalcy and laughter into the daily routine here. But there is no denying that the horrific violence will often make that task impossible.

Good for you, Jake, for showing that you can’t just tell a swell human interest story when a country is being ripped apart. And, good for you, Nightline, for airing the piece with its disheartening conclusion.

But I can’t quite let it go at that. You see, it’s not that it is “American Journalists’ duty to look at the broader picture in Iraq.” Not quite. That’s not what Tapper was doing, exactly. As was explained in the very intro to the piece (worded less strongly in the written piece), Nightline had sent Tapper out to find a feel-good story. Yes, they really said that.

And it is there, in that, that I find the real news here. Christ, it’s no surprise that no day in Iraq is a day untouched by violence, but hearing Nightline host Terry Moran and Tapper both assert that they wanted to do a “good news” piece, that they went looking for an uplifting story—the kind that would make the deniers and liars in the White House and Pentagon proud—this “news” confirmed a rumor I had been hearing for months. ABC news wants its reporters in Iraq to send back “positive stories.”

I had heard both Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and radio host Brian Lehrer of WNYC, New York, each say, rather matter-of-factly, on separate occasions, that ABC anchor Bob Woodruff had been injured because he was sent out of his way—out of the comfortably safe zone—to find some “good news.” (Sorry, no links.) Both said this as if it were just understood. I tried to find an independent confirmation at the time, but because I couldn’t, I let it go.

But now we have two other newsmen confirming it on-air, and there’s the real news: journalists looking for stories with a pre-ordained slant. At what point do you stop being a “reporter,” and start being a commentator. . . or a Pentagon shill?

Credit to Tapper, Magee, and Nightline for showing the hard truth; credit (of a different kind) to ABC for trying to invent a happy shiny truthiness.