As we were planning our Iran session, Jeremy and I discussed whether we would be able to find someone with direct experience of Iran – well, that is, find someone and get them to accept our invitation – given the difficulties of traveling there. Today the LA Times published a piece about the costs and benefits of reporting on Iran from inside the country. Its title sums up the analysis: “Inside view is worth risk, reporters in Iran say“. [hat tip: Cyrus Farivar]
Despite the threat of arrest, despite the government shutting down newspapers and explicitly warning the media away from certain topics, the journalists quoted (mostly anonymously) all agreed that it was still better to be there on the ground than to cover Iran from afar. Which I suppose is rather unsurprising, since if they felt differently they obviously wouldn’t be there.
Journalists have to find a balance between doing their jobs – which requires that they independently investigate the government’s claims – and preserving the access they must have to do their jobs. Even in our own country, where no journalist would ever be imprisoned for a story, think of the run-up to the Iraq war. Government claims which were being easily debunked by independent journalists and bloggers were published uncritically and repeatedly by the Washington press corps.
Valid comparison? Discuss in the comments.
Articles
iran, journalism, politics, usa, writing
Our colleague’s piece in Harper’s concerning John Zorn elicited a reader’s letter to the editor. The reader said Cohen’s articles was “appropriately polymathic” but that his history of music was “curiously garbled.”
The full text is freely available at Harpers.org, though you need to scroll to the bottom of the page – it’s the fourth letter.
Announcements
art, criticism, music, writing
There’s a story in the NY Times today about accusations that the writer Milan Kundera collaborated with the Czechoslovak secret police in the early 50s and ousted a western intelligence agent. These accusations are oddly similar to his first novel, “The Joke” and the story is definitely worth checking out.
Living in Prague, I was always struck but how many Czechs disliked two of their most well-known countrymen, Kundera and the dissident/playwright-turned-President, Vaclav Havel. Havel was disliked because, at least in my mind, he symbolized the reality of post-communist life after the utopic dreams stirred up by the Velvet Revolution (which go back to Prague Spring in 1968). But Kundera was generally disdained by his fellow Czechs because he found success abroad and is now a French citizen. The Czechs are some of the most gloomy, brooding people around and they can hold a grudge like no other nationality. Kundera’s recent book “Ignorance” talks about the return of a Czech exile from France and the frosty reaction she receives from her friends after several decades away. These friends don’t really want to hear about her life abroad, finding her life a threat to their conception of themselves and how they have lived. I think anyone who has spent time abroad, or at least far from their home, can relate to these sentiments.
I probably wouldn’t posted just based on reading this story, but I spent last night with a friend of mine who just moved back from Prague after a dozen years there, and a friend who just moved back from Paris after seven years there. I actually talked with the post-France friend about “Ignorance” last night and recommended it to her as we talked about adjusting to life back in the US, which includes the weird experience of slowly beginning to blend into the crowd after having spending years of constantly standing out in any room just because you were foreign. Aside from the questions of identity that go into where we are from and how it defines us, the story about Kundera–and so much of his writing–have to do with reckoning with the past. There are so many parallels to that, both personal and on a larger level (national/global, related to conflicts or the recent horrors of the past).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/world/europe/18kundera.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Kundera&st=cse&oref=slogin
In the News
czech republic, politics, writing