Journalism dean says I-Comm speech engages students, professionals
War is not trivial. Journalists who cover wars do not do so by whim.
Understanding why a journalist chooses to cover a war is a challenge. That challenge was laid before students and faculty Tuesday when freelance journalist David Axe made two presentations on his experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Chad, Lebanon and other nasty, risky places to conduct his business.
In Afghanistan, Axe was riding in an army vehicle that detonated an IED. He explained to a visual communications class how he told that story of destruction, though mercifully not death, in different ways for different media. It kicked off a discussion about editing and self-censorship. To me, Axe sounded rather anti-war.
Later, speaking to another group, Axe said he "would be terrified if there were no wars" because he'd be out of the only job he's good at. The Daily Gamecock reported on Axe's speech and editorialized that Axe may enjoy his job "too much." The Gamecock admonished that a "sick fascination with violence and death should inhabit no part of a war reporter's mind."
Agreed. The healthier fascination is to explore why wars take place, who stands to profit, who loses (almost always non-combatants) and what are sufficient national interests worth going to war and the inevitable conundrum — how many lives are a bearable cost. Don't gasp. Strategic planners in the White House and Pentagon ask themselves these questions.
The College of Mass Communications and Information Studies brought Axe to campus — he's a South Carolinian — as part of our annual I-Comm Week. The whole point of I-Comm Week is to engage students, faculty and the community with professionals, alumni and other experts in a conversation that extends our knowledge of the fields for which we are preparing our students.
Quite frankly, we want the dialogue to be provocative. If Axe brought a club to the table, he got our attention and The Daily Gamecock's.
"Too political," more than one student wrote in critiquing Axe's presentation. War is political. A student told Axe she did not want to see a lot of bloody pictures at dinner and have to try to sleep with those images on her mind. There's no war without gore. In fact, American media tends to be too squeamish about showing the reality of war or crime. Do we only expect violence on the football field?
Axe's pictures are only part of the picture. He's one dot in a vast pointillist painting created by thousands of journalists whose work draws the larger picture. But sometimes, he's the only dot in a ravaged wasteland most of us would not venture to. Somehow, we need to collect and connect the other dots. That's what journalists seek to do.
The war correspondent can be fearless and trembling at the same time. Some are soldiers of fortune, though the fortunes are not great. The experience is adrenal. It is also perilous. I've lost friends and colleagues covering wars in Nicaragua, Iran and Bosnia.
Thanks, Daily Gamecock, for continuing the dialogue. That's why we're here.
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