born 1976, political Scientist and freelance journalist
On the 7th of March, parliamentary elections will be held in Iraq. Between the 14th of December, 2009 and the 5th of January, 2010, I traveled around that country commissioned by the ICIP (Institut Catalá Internacional per la Pau). After landing in Basra, I traveled to Rumeitha, Najaf and Baghdad in order to meet with trade unionists, students, teachers, clothes salesmen, a mayor, generals, a blacksmith or the father of a Sunni swimmer who saved seven Shiite pilgrims from drowning in the river Tigris. I decided to ask my questions with no hurry. To eat, drink tea and chat; listening. Without inhibitions. Stories and points of view which were not necessarily the ones I was looking for or the ones I wanted to bring back home. The stories that came my way. Little resistances.
There are now alternative kinds of journalism. Written press, television, radio, video, photography and even literature coexist and evolve. With an ever increasing echo, we are witnessing the blending of all the possible formats in their presence in Internet, without previous publishing in the traditional media. Internet is the place where we can practice with documentary journalism, a middle ground between the immediacy of the here and the now; the story we are telling and some of the causes that feed the quagmire in which we are always wading from, a liberty of spaces and focus far greater than the one found in traditional media.
In Internet we can look at the story in depth, with videos that are not long enough for festival screens -that have a yearly audiences of more than 500- while being too long for television and not gentle, lightweight or interesting enough to be offered to a million spectators. Stories that are past their “best before” date -in the words that editors in chief like to use for what they do not want to publish-, that may already have been told (or not) and that are no longer current or necessary.
Every professional must chose the method in which they best expresses themselves for a specific coverage in a specific place at a specific moment. Many times, the urgency of daily news, the agenda set by competition between companies, the “pollution” that journalists undergo when they travel, photograph, film and group interviews or simply the sensationalism and exclusivity of those who are only aiming to attract attention, distorts the information and the possibility of understanding a bit more the human beings that are living the story. Hence transmitting critical elements to the receiving end of the news and generating a minimal empathy with those living in different realities. The 700-word report that has to be sent at eight in the afternoon avoids a large portion of the observed reality. The same can be said of the minute and a half piece composed by the hardened correspondent. When all this is aggravated by working in Arabic and hence depending on translations, it is very positive to calmly listen and read everything that has been recorded and written down before selecting what is to be finally edited.
After about a month working on the spot and another month working back home with notepads and on my computer, we now publish a series of written and video reports ahead of the Iraqi parliamentary elections. And we have decided, with the aim of completing and complementing, that it is possible to prepare coverage of the elections centered on precisely those aspects of reality that the special correspondents that are writing on the week prior to the elections are incapable of covering. This is especially relevant at this point in time, when there are no longer any correspondents in Baghdad and it is too expensive, dangerous or simply useless to go back to Basra or Najaf. Because we believe that, in order to understand what will happen in these elections, it is equally important to focus on the daily life of the citizens that will be casting their votes, and not only on the games of strategy that will be played between political parties in the couple of weeks prior to the electoral campaign.
The documentary journalism supported by the ICIP is a communication format that can only be defined as a privilege. Time and liberty to go deeper into the news. Time to think, mature, translate, edit and transmit a portion of the Iraqi reality that does not intend to be newsworthy or compete for a headline. And this has its cost in time and efforts. Both for the writer and for the readers. Because learning and understanding also requires the willpower of those who are at the receiving end. There is an effort involved. Learning is not necessarily fun. And the aim is not to try and convince anyone of anything. Nor do we intend to use the disguise of fact-based objectivity. Any written piece implies a previous selection of places, moments and people. Because there is an intention. And in this particular case, it is unveiled even before publishing. Abdallah, Thuwar, Ali or Zaid, the protagonists of the stories that will be told, have something in common.
All my friends (yes, my friends, not only people to be quoted) flatly reject the use of violence and they try, in their daily routines, to contribute in lowering the levels of hatred, revenge, reprisal and armed rivalry that have affected them -and all their fellow countrymen- so much. Never, not even in the worse moments, did they abandon Iraq and when they talk, they are doing it from that perspective. So that people in foreign lands who want to understand Iraq have more instruments at their disposal.
Nobody travels blindly through a country they do not know. Most of the foreign correspondents in Iraq are assisted by a hired translator. I was no exception. I traveled around Iraq assisted by a group of men and women who guided me and translated for me because they wanted to transmit their points of view. And who granted this visitor to Iraq in 2009 the privilege of sleeping in their houses, accompanying them to their work and strolling through their streets. Naked. Without bodyguards or hiding behind the protection of the weapons of the armies.
And both their job and my focus when I try to share their experiences back home, is broadcasted thanks to a commission from the ICIP, within the framework of their peace promoting program. Journalism always has its intentions and values. In this particular case, they are clearly stated: to give volume to a voice; an informative message, which simply states that Iraqis are fed up with violence and reconciliation. Some will qualify this stance as activism. Others may call it propaganda. But it is simply documentary journalism for Internet completed through a previous commission from a public entity. A new type of journalism that we hope will have its echo not only in this occasion but also as one of the new ways of approaching reality that many people are demanding in the present debate on the future of information.