an unembedded journalist in occupied iraq
a fascinating profile in the guardian today of a US journalist operating in iraq. there’s a brief discussion of the problem of journalistic ‘objectivity’:
In the introduction to his book ['Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq'], [Dahr Jamail] quotes the story of an indigenous Canadian hunter who was called to give evidence at an inquiry into a planned dam that would flood his homeland and destroy his traditional way of life. The hunter was asked to swear on the Bible that he would tell the truth, but he had never seen a Bible and wondered how this miraculous truth-telling instrument worked. “He spoke with the translator at length,” writes Jamail, “and finally the translator looked up at the judge. ‘He does not know whether he can tell the truth. He says he can tell only what he knows.’”
this story would make most epistemologists blanch. but so much the worse for most epistemologists.
link to an interesting site for independent journalism on iraq – electroniciraq.net
