After an unplanned two-week hiatus, I've resumed my weekly column for the leading Pakistani daily The News. This week's installment retails and comments on a recent long article by Orville Schell:
"The world described by Orville Schell in the April 6 issue of The New York Review of Books reads like a cross between the poignant Robin Williams film Good Morning, Vietnam and Evelyn Waugh's classic novel about foreign correspondents, Scoop - except without the humour. ...
"During my five years covering Asia based out of Bangkok, I learned that among foreign correspondents there exists a caste system. Staffers with major Western news organisations are the Brahmins, 'super-stringers' with retainers or well-paying regular gigs are the Kshatriyas, and self-funding freelancers are … well, you get the idea. If that was so in peacetime, imagine the crippling disadvantage freelancers -- who often are the most intrepid reporters, both physically and intellectually -- face today in Iraq."
My column is online here and includes a link to Schell's article (which obviously I recommend highly).
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
If you haven't seen it already, I must recommend the documentary "Control Room" (2004) for a perspective of the Iraq conflict not easily available to those embedded in American living rooms. You'll find it in the "Special Interest" section of your local blockbuster video. More information on this website
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391024/
You could also search NYTimes and Washington Post for reviews. I thought it was an extraordinary movie.
Post a Comment