- 2 years ago
Join us for a thought-provoking discussion as journalist and writer Roger Cohen, along with award-winning author Anjan Sundaram, delve into the profound impact of war on literature. Hosted by Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, President of International at The New York Times Company, this session offers insights into their experiences reporting from conflict zones and how it has shaped their craft. Don't miss this insightful exploration of the intersection between war, journalism, and storytelling.
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#JFL #JaipurLiteratureFest #JFL2024 #JaipurLiteratureFest2024 #Jaipur #JaipurDiaries #Book #WritingWar #AuthorTalks #Oneindia
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NewsTranscript
00:00 It's been a long-held ambition to come to the Jaipur Literary Festival, so it really
00:11 is terrific to be here on stage this evening.
00:17 But it's also particularly cool for me because I am joined on stage by Roger Cohen and Jan
00:27 Sundaram, who I was introduced to by a mutual friend of both Rogers and I a little while
00:35 ago.
00:36 So, there's a sort of serendipitous nature to this evening.
00:42 And Jan is an award-winning journalist who has reported principally from Africa and the
00:47 Middle East, and most recently from Mexico, and whose work has appeared in the New York
00:52 Times, it has appeared in the AP, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and a myriad of other
00:58 publications.
00:59 He is also the author of three memoirs on journalism, Stringer, Bad News and Breakup.
01:08 I've read all of them and they're all very powerful reads and I would highly recommend
01:11 them.
01:12 He has covered conflict in the Congo, Central African Republic, and most recently has been
01:17 covering another type of conflict, the one that is waged against environmental defenders
01:23 that has claimed over 1,700 lives over the past decade.
01:27 Roger, currently the Paris Bureau Chief of the New York Times, has worked for the Times
01:32 for 33 years as foreign correspondent, foreign editor, and an opinion columnist between 2009
01:41 and 2020.
01:43 His work has been recognized with several awards, including last year a Pulitzer Prize
01:48 and George Polk Award as part of the Times' coverage of the war in Ukraine.
01:54 Believe it or not, though, Roger also had a life before the New York Times, working
01:59 for both the Wall Street Journal and for Reuters.
02:03 He has covered conflict all over the world during his career and has also authored five
02:08 books, including a wonderfully crafted memoir, The Girl from Human Street.
02:14 He has also written another book called Hearts Grown Brutal, a book called Sagas of Sarajevo,
02:21 Soldiers and Slaves, and the recent affirming flame, A Meditation on Life and Politics,
02:28 which by the way is worth buying and reading just for the introductory essay by itself.
02:34 So our subject this evening is writing war, a subject that you both have, both of these
02:41 gentlemen have a deep, visceral experience of.
02:44 So Anjan, I'm going to start with you actually, because what I didn't say is that, in my intro,
02:49 is that you also turned down doing a PhD at Yale.
02:54 You also turned down a job being a mathematician at Goldman Sachs.
02:59 In other words, you turned down security, good money, to become a freelance journalist.
03:06 And not any freelance journalist, to do it in a theater, which is probably the most difficult
03:10 theater in the world, which is conflict-ridden, Central Africa.
03:15 Why?
03:16 >> I'm sure my parents asked me the same question back then, and I've struggled to answer it
03:21 ever since.
03:22 But it's true.
03:26 I was studying mathematics.
03:27 I was immersed in math.
03:29 I thought I was going to become a math professor.
03:31 I'd done my qualifying exams for the PhD.
03:35 I was about to begin my PhD.
03:37 And I saw a piece in the New York Times actually, in the lunch hall at university, and it was
03:44 a tiny piece in the middle of the newspaper, bottom of the page, that said four million
03:48 people had died in the Congo, and related some events in the war there.
03:54 And it blew my mind that that piece wasn't on the front page.
03:58 And I wondered why a piece that spoke about events so large were -- firstly, was such
04:04 a small piece, and why it was buried in the middle of the newspaper.
04:08 And that was a starting point for a series of events that included paying my final bill
04:15 at Yale, where I was studying.
04:18 And the cashier happened to be African.
04:21 I asked her where she was from.
04:22 She said Zaire.
04:23 I said, well, I might go to Zaire, which is the old name for Congo.
04:26 And she said, oh, you stupid Yale kids, you don't know how to sign a check.
04:29 I could steal all your money, and you're going to go to Congo, you're going to get robbed
04:33 or killed.
04:34 No, I'm not going to help you.
04:36 And she had a second job at a parking lot.
04:39 I would go there, buy her milkshakes, Dunkin' Donuts milkshakes.
04:43 And finally, she said I could stay with her family in Kinshasa.
04:45 So I bought a one-way ticket.
04:48 And really, out of a curiosity, to cover these events that felt should be getting more attention.
04:58 And it was-- I didn't know how much change I could affect what I would do.
05:04 But that was a starting point for this long journey that I've continued for the last 18
05:08 years now.
05:09 I want to get into what you witnessed in that long journey as well.
05:14 Roger--
05:15 Roger, sorry.
05:16 I have a problem with my chair.
05:17 There's a problem with your chair.
05:20 It's not safe.
05:21 We don't want to have-- he's been in the Congo and Central African Republic, and he's more
05:27 danger here with a chair than there.
05:30 Roger, in your introductory essay, which I mentioned earlier in the Affirming Flame,
05:35 you wrote-- and I'm going to quote here-- "More important is the view from the ground,
05:40 the detail hard-earned, the smell of the place, the phrases that jolts.
05:47 To see, to listen, to remain, to reflect, to report, these are the elements."
05:56 Which I think was a beautiful way of writing about journalism.
05:59 But you have been a columnist for quite a long time, and you've been a reporter for
06:04 quite a long time.
06:05 You've just returned to reporting.
06:07 Can you help explain the difference for you in your craft in a war zone, being a journalist
06:15 versus being a commentator, being a reporter as opposed to opining on something?
06:20 Can you give us a sense of that?
06:22 Well, hello, everybody, and thank you.
06:26 Thank you, Stephen.
06:28 I was not offered a job to become a mathematician at Goldman Sachs.
06:33 Not sure why.
06:37 My mother, being a good Jewish mom, of course wanted me to become a lawyer or a doctor.
06:44 But I always loved to write, and that set me on my path.
06:49 Well, Stephen, the core difference is that when you're a columnist, you're writing opinion.
06:55 You're saying, "Is this good?
06:57 Is this bad?"
06:59 You're putting your opinions out on the page, which is pretty terrifying at first.
07:06 You can't hit the ball out of the park every time with a column.
07:09 You know when one feels right.
07:13 I had extraordinary freedom as a columnist and enjoyed very much my time those 13 years.
07:22 If, however, somebody put a gun to my head and said, "What were you put on this earth
07:27 to do?"
07:29 What have been the most memorable moments in your career as a journalist?
07:32 It would be being a foreign correspondent, arriving somewhere, somewhere you don't know,
07:39 somewhere completely new, and just trying to understand, which is seeing, feeling, smelling,
07:49 intuiting.
07:50 There is no substitute for boots on the ground, which of course is expensive.
07:56 I think many wars are vastly underreported, as your career has illustrated, Anjan.
08:05 I first went to cover war in...
08:08 I was hired by the Wall Street Journal in Rome in 1983, more than 40 years ago, to cover
08:14 the Italian economy.
08:16 The first thing they did was send me to Beirut to cover the war.
08:20 You shouldn't go into journalism if you want a predictable career.
08:27 It was an extraordinary experience being in Beirut.
08:29 The Marines, 250 Marines, had just been blown up by Hezbollah.
08:37 Beirut had been at war for quite a long time.
08:43 When I think of the details, as somebody saying to me, "You know, we've reached a point where
08:47 the children, our children can't sleep at night unless they hear the sound of shelling."
08:54 The sound of shelling had become soothing because they had heard it for so long.
08:58 If there was silence, it was terrifying.
09:02 I remember watching a waiter at a Beirut restaurant with shelling all around, folding and refolding
09:10 the napkins on the table to arrange them in the most elegant manner, more or less in the
09:17 same way that many women in Sarajevo at the height of the siege would wear very elegant
09:23 high-heeled shoes and dress up to show.
09:25 They called it "inat."
09:27 Inat was defiance of the Serb forces shelling them from the hills and killing women and
09:36 children indiscriminately.
09:40 I think war is like other forms of reporting.
09:43 You're always looking for that moment of, that epiphany, that moment of illumination.
09:51 It's like other forms of journalism.
09:52 I don't know if you agree, Anjan, but with a higher intensity.
09:56 If you're interested in people and want to tell stories, nowhere are people revealed
10:04 to you as naked, so to speak, as in war.
10:13 I want to go back a little later to this difference between being a column, observing as a columnist
10:20 and as a reporter.
10:22 Before I do, when you've been to, and this is for both of you, when you've been to quite
10:28 a few conflict zones, is there a way that you prepare yourself?
10:34 Clearly every theatre of conflict is different, is unique, but is there something, a commonality
10:42 in how you prepare yourself before you go into these places?
10:45 Anjan, perhaps you can start.
10:48 That's a great question.
10:50 I think it's evolved over the years, obviously, as I've begun to understand what this kind
10:56 of reporting entails.
10:57 But I would say the common factor, if I think about it, is trying to find a human connection,
11:05 someone I can trust, a trustworthy connection in those places.
11:09 And that's my point.
11:12 My previous answer was exactly that, the family in Kinshasa that would receive me in their
11:18 home and serve, that home could serve as, it became the AP headquarters, Associated
11:24 Press headquarters in Kinshasa.
11:26 I was the stringer there for Congo.
11:28 And to find that place where I feel safe, from which I can begin to travel first 10
11:35 meters, then 100 meters, then a few kilometers, but I can always come back.
11:40 And it's sort of, traveling in a war zone, reporting on a war, I find the most important
11:46 thing for me is having the humility to know that I may need to turn back.
11:53 I can't be stubborn about getting to where I want to go.
11:57 At every point along the journey, I stop, I talk to people at bars, cafes, restaurants,
12:03 I ask them, "Is it safe?"
12:05 And maybe sometimes they might say, "Oh, you know, we heard an army convoy move last night,
12:11 we're not sure."
12:12 And in that case, I either have to turn back or I have to wait there and wait to know more,
12:18 to know if it's safe.
12:20 But I always have to be willing to turn back, and being willing to turn back means having
12:25 somewhere to turn back to.
12:28 And that is often this sort of, has to be this place where I feel safe, where people
12:33 know me, where I trust the person.
12:34 So I would say the most important piece of preparation is finding that human connection,
12:41 speaking to them, asking them, "Will you receive me?"
12:44 There's a place in Mexico now that I want to go to when an environmental defender has
12:49 been killed, and I call the community and I ask them, "Can you receive me and guarantee
12:54 my safety?"
12:55 And they replied, "We can't even guarantee the safety of our own people, so we can certainly
13:00 not guarantee yours, and so I can't go."
13:03 And so yes, I would say that that's sort of the make or break decision.
13:06 And then there's of course reading, trying to understand as much as possible about the
13:11 conflict, about whom I'm traveling with, and all those other things.
13:14 But I would say the most important factor is having that point of trust and security.
13:19 Yes, reading, reading, history, history, history.
13:24 It's very important.
13:26 People are shaped by it.
13:27 You don't understand them unless you have that background in your head.
13:33 Preparation, preparation is the worst.
13:36 Anticipation is the worst.
13:38 The worst moment is the worst, is the moment of anticipation in war.
13:43 When you're in it, you're in it.
13:45 And the fear, at least in my case, and I think it's fairly general, recedes.
13:50 And there's no point hiding that there is fear.
13:54 I concluded some people just shouldn't go to a war zone, period.
13:59 Some people can tolerate degrees of risk, particularly photographers in my experience,
14:05 that most people can't tolerate.
14:06 And then there are all the people in the middle, among whom I'd include myself, who can handle
14:13 war but who are relieved to get out of a war zone, who go back to war but also do other
14:22 things.
14:23 So, yes, I would say certainly the anticipation, Stephen, is the worst.
14:31 I was in Ukraine, well, I was in Russia last year and Ukraine the year before.
14:39 And I was doing a big piece on Odessa and then I decided to go to Mikolaev, which was
14:45 close to the front.
14:47 And Mikolaev got pretty badly shelled that day by Russian forces.
14:52 And again, there was, you know, should I do it, shouldn't I do it?
14:58 You don't need good luck in war.
15:01 You need the absence of bad luck.
15:04 Because shrapnel can fly anywhere.
15:07 I lost a colleague, New York Times colleague in Bosnia, who went there just after the war
15:13 I'd covered for two years ended.
15:15 He was on the plane of the Commerce Secretary, which slammed into a Croatian mountain.
15:21 And he died leaving his wife and three children.
15:23 So you need the absence of bad luck.
15:26 You don't necessarily need good luck.
15:30 Once you're in it, I think the adrenaline, the intensity of what you observe, the marriage
15:39 of the head and the heart can produce some of the best journalistic copy.
15:45 The danger is a voyeuristic one.
15:49 You write a great story about terrible suffering.
15:52 You're in a room where everybody's in tears, where maybe the body is lying there, maybe
15:58 you've gone to the morgue in Sarajevo, and you're witnessing terrible grief.
16:04 And maybe it appears on page one, and maybe you receive a lot of notes about it.
16:10 The grief remains, the people remain.
16:13 And that's why, for example, after Bosnia, I felt I had to stop.
16:17 I had to stop, and I did for a couple of years in order to write a book.
16:22 It was not something I could just move on from.
16:26 And have you changed over 33 years?
16:30 And John, have you changed over the time?
16:31 Alas, yes, in many ways.
16:33 In terms of how you prepare, though, the thinking that when you were first going into Sarajevo
16:38 versus going now into Ukraine, is it the same amount of preparation, or do you think about
16:46 things in a different way?
16:49 I think I approach things in the same way.
16:53 Everything is speeded up a lot, too much, probably.
17:00 I feel that I want to do forms of journalism that take a lot of time.
17:05 I've always believed in immersion in place.
17:09 It's much harder to immerse yourself in place when you carry your world with you.
17:17 When I was in Beirut, I could say I was going to see the Druze in the mountains.
17:21 I'd be back in touch with my editors four days later.
17:25 That does not happen anymore.
17:28 But I'm concerned about insufficient readiness, preparedness, tolerance of trying to go deep
17:40 into what people feel, which is the best way to tell a story.
17:46 Even with an impossible assignment, I've been in Israel three times since October 7th.
17:51 There is no more difficult conflict to cover because the emotions are so charged.
17:55 No conflict provokes such passions, such rage, such incomprehension, mutual incomprehension.
18:04 If you want to tell that story as best you can down the middle, through people on either
18:10 side, you have to take time.
18:14 There is no other way.
18:18 I feel maybe there are fewer people prepared to do that today than there were in another
18:24 time.
18:25 >> And John?
18:28 >> When I hear Roger and when I hear your questions as well, I feel like the question
18:33 that comes to my mind is why do it?
18:37 Why take such risk?
18:39 And I guess there are two parts to that.
18:42 The first is to echo what Roger just said, as journalists, we travel to these places,
18:50 we're traveling to these communities, we're there for a period of time.
18:53 And that can seem risky to the average person living in the city.
18:56 That can seem incredibly risky.
18:58 But the people we're writing about, reporting on, they live there full time.
19:04 And the risks that they take are infinitely larger.
19:08 And so their courage, their bravery, A, is far greater than anything usually that journalists,
19:18 even though we sometimes push the boundaries, usually it's only for a limited period of
19:23 time.
19:24 But secondly, I think they inspire through their courage.
19:28 In the darkest, most seemingly hopeless places, there are always people who are incredibly
19:36 inspiring.
19:38 And I'm now in Mexico, and I went to a community's protest to protect their forest on a highway,
19:51 and I asked what's going to happen next.
19:53 I was protesting with the community, and I asked someone what's going to happen next,
19:56 what's the government going to do?
19:58 And that person said, oh, they're going to kill somebody.
20:00 I asked them, who are they going to kill?
20:02 They said, oh, they're going to kill David.
20:04 That guy over there, they're going to kill him.
20:05 They already kidnapped him once before, and they're going to kill him.
20:11 And so later that day, I was in David's yard, camera turned on, and I asked him, aren't
20:16 you afraid they're going to kill you?
20:18 And he said, of course I'm afraid.
20:20 But I would rather people remember me for what I actually believe than remember me as
20:24 someone afraid hiding inside my house.
20:27 And his kids were running behind me in the yard.
20:29 And at that moment, my only thought was, how can I serve you?
20:33 How can my work as a reporter help you?
20:37 How can I take a little bit of risk compared to the enormous risk that you're taking to
20:42 amplify your work, to raise your profile so people are more afraid of killing you?
20:49 What can I do?
20:50 And I think that justifies and makes all the danger, all the risk make sense somehow.
20:56 Yeah, but on the danger side of things, I think working for a large media organization
21:02 like the New York Times or the BBC, there is a lot of caution now about war reporting
21:09 and safety, rightly so.
21:11 Roger, I know before you went into Ukraine, you were sent on a course, thrown into nettles
21:17 by some chap.
21:20 When I went to Bosnia, 30 years ago, I was given a helmet, a flak jacket, and a broken
21:28 down semi-armored Land Rover and told good luck.
21:31 That's right.
21:32 So it's changed a lot.
21:33 And that was it, yeah, a lot.
21:34 And now you are prepared.
21:37 We often, at New York Times, will often put minders around you.
21:41 Ex-soldiers will be protecting you.
21:43 Whereas you are going into these places without any security at all, without a helmet or flak
21:50 jackets.
21:52 So you're taking a really somewhat crazy risk in some of these things.
21:59 I guess when Roger described the shrapnel and the risk that shrapnel can go anywhere,
22:04 I guess I would say the conflicts that I feel that I've reported on in Central Africa, to
22:10 a degree in Mexico, they feel like conflicts at a more human level.
22:16 And that gives me a certain confidence.
22:18 I've had guns pointed at me.
22:19 I've had people point the guns at me and say they're going to kill me.
22:23 But because there's a human behind that weapon, I feel I can talk my way out.
22:30 Whereas shrapnel, it's random.
22:33 And there are bombs flying.
22:34 And that, to me, is far scarier.
22:39 And you need the helmets and the flak jackets.
22:41 Whereas here, in the conflicts I report on, I feel what you need is somehow the skill
22:47 to make a human connection, even in that moment when you think they're ready to kill you.
22:55 And that's a skill.
22:56 Yeah.
22:57 Flak jackets aren't really going to help.
22:58 >>I mean, I think there's a danger in moving in a big entourage.
23:02 I think the dream of most print journalists is just -- speaking for myself, anyway -- is
23:08 just to be wandering around with a notebook.
23:11 You don't want to be particularly conspicuous.
23:14 And I'd just like to second very strongly what Anjan said.
23:18 I mean, you always dream -- it almost never happens -- but you do dream somehow of making
23:25 a difference, of making a small difference, of getting voices that wouldn't otherwise
23:30 be heard, allowing them to be heard.
23:33 I mean, my kids are not happy with me.
23:36 I mean, they say -- and my grandkids now -- I mean, they say, "What the hell are you doing?
23:41 You've done it all.
23:42 Why would you go back to one of these places?"
23:46 And probably the answer would be that, that it's important, that it can just occasionally
23:53 make a difference.
23:54 And indeed, in Bosnia, I do think that the work of many -- of John Pompred, at the Post,
24:01 of Samantha Power, then a rookie journalist, of many others -- just saying again and again
24:07 and again, "Here is a European city with a dirt trench around it, in which women and
24:12 children are being blown up every single day."
24:16 I think I could see it sometimes.
24:19 Those were very different times, a direct link between a piece and something the Clinton
24:23 administration said.
24:24 And finally, NATO reacted in '95 and put an end to the war.
24:30 So yeah, it's that.
24:31 I mean, it's a key.
24:32 >> So on that subject of Bosnia, I mean, you were a captive there, like everybody else.
24:39 It was sieged?
24:40 >> No, not like everyone else.
24:41 I could get out.
24:42 They couldn't get out.
24:43 I had a press pass.
24:45 >> So let's talk about objectivity in this, because I know in Bosnia, in particular, Martin
24:52 Bell, who was there, who you probably knew there, he raised his head above the parapet
24:57 at the time during the Civil War and proclaimed he could no longer be impartial in the face
25:03 of the daily atrocities of that conflict, I'm quoting here.
25:07 And he ignited a very heated debate at the time, and it was quite acrimonious.
25:14 His advocacy of what he called a journalism of attachment placed emphasis on the moral
25:19 duty to tell the truth, however inconvenient, over and above the professional obligation
25:24 to be impartial.
25:26 What do you think about that, this impartiality versus attachment journalism, if we can call
25:33 it that?
25:34 This is for both of you, actually.
25:37 >> I've always been skeptical about the word "objective."
25:43 We're human beings.
25:44 Each of us brings our sentiments, our feelings, who we are, into what we write.
25:52 So objectivity is a long word that I think is impossible and probably not even desirable
26:05 to attain.
26:06 I do believe in fairness.
26:08 I think one should try to be fair.
26:10 I certainly, in Sarajevo, made the effort.
26:14 One thing that distinguishes journalists in war is that we get to cross the lines.
26:19 We get to cross the lines.
26:20 And that's a complicated business, because you're dealing with people who do not cross
26:25 lines, who never cross lines.
26:28 And so their minds are formed in one place, in one framework, or in another.
26:34 And you somehow are trying to understand and bridge that.
26:38 I made the effort to go and see Radovan Karadzic in Pale, which is precisely eight minutes
26:44 away by car from central Sarajevo.
26:48 It took me four days to get there.
26:50 I had to go to Split and fly to Zagreb, fly from Zagreb to Budapest, drive from Budapest
26:56 to Belgrade, from Belgrade to Zvornik, to come in on the Serb side, and then drive down
27:01 to Pale.
27:03 So that was an effort.
27:04 And I spoke to him, and I thought he was pretty insane, and the interview confirmed it.
27:11 But at least I made the effort.
27:14 And so yes, I think one should try to understand both sides.
27:20 I don't think one should strive for perfect objectivity.
27:25 I mean, we're human beings.
27:27 I certainly helped some people get out of Sarajevo, because I had the means to do so.
27:32 And I thought a woman saving her child was more important than anything I might write
27:37 the next day in the New York Times.
27:40 So now, today, there's an assault on what is called both sides journalism.
27:50 That worries me.
27:51 There's a view that journalism should consist entirely of taking a side and arguing it.
28:01 And the opinion is normally formed before anything like reporting, going out, trying
28:08 to understand, for example, why people vote for Trump.
28:15 And that attack on both sides journalism, I think, both sides journalism, is worrying,
28:22 because we should go into every story, in a war zone or not, with an open mind.
28:28 And Jan?
28:29 You're also a teacher of journalism.
28:31 You taught journalism in Rwanda, another place you have a PhD in.
28:33 So what's your view on this?
28:35 I think this question of subjectivity is particularly interesting on this panel, because Roger's
28:39 been an opinion columnist, and also alongside his reporting.
28:44 And I write memoir, which combines subjective, personal views about my life with reporting.
28:52 So I think it's particularly interesting to have this discussion here.
28:55 Personally, I find, to this question now of distrust in journalism in general, I find
29:05 being transparent about our subjectivity, bringing that subjectivity to our side, can
29:12 be powerful in creating a sense of trust with our audiences.
29:17 And the way I try to do this in the memoirs that I write is, I try to be transparent about
29:24 who I am.
29:25 I say I grew up in India, I studied at a university in the States, my background, my education,
29:34 all these sorts of things.
29:35 And I try to present to the reader who I am, and what that means about the kinds of stories
29:41 I'll be drawn to, and the blind spots that I'll have.
29:44 And I'm transparent about it.
29:45 And I say, I also come from a position of ignorance.
29:49 Often I'll begin my books at the point at which I knew nothing, or almost nothing, about
29:54 the country, as Roger spoke about just now.
29:58 I'll say, there was always such a point.
30:02 And I like to start my stories there and say, hey, this is why I got interested in this
30:06 situation.
30:08 And if this resonates with you, if you feel similarly, why don't you sit on my shoulder,
30:13 and we can travel together through this country, through this war, in many cases, and we can
30:21 learn together.
30:22 You can watch me learn.
30:23 And that's what I offer to readers.
30:30 You recently wrote a piece called "Why the World's Deadliest Wars Go Unreported" in Foreign
30:39 Policy Magazine.
30:40 Can you just give us a very, very pithy synopsis of what your theory was as to why?
30:49 And perhaps, Roger, as a former foreign editor for the New York Times, you can give some
30:54 insights into how we choose to cover various conflicts and not others.
31:00 Yeah.
31:01 I think, usually, it's a combination of factors that includes structural classism.
31:12 So the interests of the poor are very rarely represented or well-represented in the media.
31:20 I think there's a degree of colonial history in the news.
31:25 I think there's also outright racism in many cases, especially in Mexico, for example.
31:33 I can point to that.
31:35 But the thesis of my PhD, which you just mentioned, was to draw a comparison between the structure
31:42 of international news and the structure of colonial administrations.
31:47 In both cases, in the case of the news, a foreign correspondent is often sent out from
31:55 a global capital, London, New York, sent out to the peripheries of the world, where they
31:59 report, often appropriating the labor of local reporters, who often don't get paid as well,
32:09 don't receive the prizes.
32:11 And the foreign correspondent then transforms this information, which is sent back to the
32:15 capitals and wins prizes and so on.
32:18 And it's changing, but there's lots of similarities between how the news is produced today and
32:25 --
32:26 There's a sort of parachute journalism of going in and covering something, but through
32:30 the lens of the West, London, New York.
32:35 Roger, when you were a foreign editor sitting in New York, and there were a myriad of -- there
32:43 were always a myriad of conflicts going on around there, what was the process of how
32:47 we covered them, how we thought about covering them in the New York Times?
32:51 Well, I was appointed foreign editor on September 10, 2001.
32:58 My first day at work was 9/11.
33:01 So what we had to cover was pretty clear.
33:05 And indeed, we scarcely covered anything else for my first year in that job.
33:13 And it was pretty overwhelming, of course.
33:18 You're living in a city which was smoldering for six weeks after the attack, and you're
33:23 trying to put on a professional hat and get the report out.
33:28 And I think people underestimate -- I don't know if you agree, Andrea -- the degree of
33:32 emotion that journalists go through and how hard it is sometimes to contain that.
33:38 I remember on the fourth day after 9/11 going out and seeing these photographs were going
33:43 up of missing people, and there was a woman who put up her ultrasound, and it said, "Looking
33:51 for the father of this baby."
33:54 And I lost it, you know.
33:56 That happens.
33:57 I don't know if it happens to you, Andrea.
34:01 So in answer to your question, that was initially what we had to cover.
34:07 Then it went into the second intifada.
34:11 Israel-Palestine is always a huge story.
34:17 There's just immense interest.
34:18 New York is a Jewish city.
34:21 A lot of Jewish people in New York who take an enormous interest in what is going on in
34:29 Israel-Palestine.
34:30 So that always demands a huge amount of coverage, and nobody ever agrees on the coverage.
34:38 That's for sure.
34:41 And then, of course, there was the Iraq War.
34:45 When U.S. forces are involved, there isn't much question about covering it.
34:50 I agree with Anjana.
34:52 Last year, the year before last, I was in both Ukraine and Central African Republic.
34:59 Central African Republic is, I think, the most desperate place I have ever been in terms
35:04 of the war, low-level war that's gone on there for many years, the extreme, extreme poverty,
35:10 illiteracy, no roads, no electricity, no nothing.
35:15 And of course, everybody I spoke to there said, "Well, you know, why do you take all
35:19 this interest in Ukraine?
35:21 Why do you never cover the wars here?"
35:23 And this is part of the anger of the global South.
35:26 This is part of this feeling that you said the degrees of colonialism still exist.
35:32 Absolutely, they still do.
35:33 I mean, we still have a P5 that was set up just after World War II, five permanent members
35:40 of the Security Council.
35:41 How does it make sense that India is not a permanent member of the Security Council?
35:46 It makes no sense whatsoever, and that has to change.
35:49 But it's very hard to change it.
35:51 And this anger is rising in the global South.
35:56 So it's places that people don't know.
36:01 It's places where people are unfamiliar.
36:05 It's racism, as you said, Anjan.
36:09 And so priorities are set, and a lot of conflicts get forgotten.
36:16 We're going to go to questions.
36:18 There's a question over here.
36:19 There's one over here.
36:20 But before we do, I just want to do one more quote.
36:25 Again, it's from Roger's writing.
36:28 It's from a column.
36:31 And I'm going to read this quote, because I want to pay homage to all of the journalists
36:38 who cover war for their bravery.
36:41 There's an expression that, "I went to cover a war, and the war covered me."
36:46 And I think people really do pay a price, and we should recognize that, and all the
36:52 journalists.
36:53 And I know your book, The Breakup, you had a very significant personal price for covering
37:00 the war.
37:01 But the quote is this, and it's from Roger, and it's one of his columns.
37:04 "After covering war, a friend said"—and he mentioned this earlier, by the way—"After
37:08 covering a war, a friend said, 'Buy yourself a house.'
37:11 I did.
37:13 I came to this French village where church bells chime, the rhythm of the days, married
37:18 here, raised children, and parked Bosnia somewhere in the corner of my mind.
37:24 I had to forget, just enough to go on.
37:28 There is always a measure of guilt in survival, when so many have died.
37:33 There are faces in death and bereavement that can never be eclipsed."
37:37 So, again, I just wanted to read that as a homage to you, both of you men, but also the
37:44 amazing women journalists out there, and all the journalists that are covering war.
37:48 So let's now go to questions.
37:50 And there's a very insistent gentleman over there.
37:53 So we'll go there first.
37:55 Let's take two at a time.
37:58 Hello.
37:59 Sorry for being insistent.
38:00 I didn't know if you could see me behind this.
38:03 Thank you very much for the session.
38:05 Such an interesting presentation.
38:08 And I also wanted to just support the point that you made in terms of the bravery and
38:12 the heroism of journalists such as you.
38:15 So perhaps I don't want you to misinterpret my question.
38:18 So I'm a diplomat, and I've worked also in a number of countries that have been in conflict.
38:25 And I think as diplomats, we're definitely more risk-averse and conservative, because
38:30 we operate under stricter rules, externally imposed rules in terms of where we go and
38:36 the consular services we provide.
38:39 So in terms of risk appetite, my experience has been that journalists who report such
38:44 as yourselves in areas like that are often not keen to hear the advice that we have to
38:50 give as diplomats.
38:52 And of course, there's huge courage and bravery in what you do, and such a commitment to an
38:57 important public service.
38:59 But I just wanted to ask you, perhaps a little controversially, how much of this willingness
39:05 to venture into war zones and the risk-taking is also perhaps driven by adrenaline and ego,
39:13 and that there are other issues and concerns perhaps because there are risks also posed
39:19 to those who have to go and try and rescue journalists when they do get into difficult
39:23 situations.
39:24 So I'm just interested to know what your thought is on that.
39:28 How much is driven by ego?
39:29 We'll get to that.
39:30 And let's--the lady behind you there with the scarf.
39:33 Roger, if I may ask you a question.
39:38 You said you'd been to--sorry, can you hear me?
39:42 You said you'd been to Israel three times since October the 7th.
39:47 Does the New York Times, if you were to cover that, expect a particular narrative from you?
39:52 Particular?
39:53 Narrative.
39:54 I would ask only because the media in general seems to have taken distinct sides in this
39:59 conflict.
40:00 Okay.
40:01 So let's take those two questions.
40:02 And, Jan, you--can you cover the first one about ego?
40:07 By the way, there was--I was reading a few comments by female war correspondents who
40:11 said that--intimated that--and we're an all-male panel here, so female--is there more nuance
40:17 in a female--less driven by ego?
40:19 Well, I guess--
40:20 Is that a question?
40:21 I guess it's a--to the question about, you know, the female perspective.
40:24 I remember my ex-wife, whom I write about in my book, Breakup, which incidentally is
40:29 about the Central African Republic, the country that Roger just spoke about as being so desolate.
40:37 Very few books about this country.
40:38 But I remember in Congo, I was out reporting with my ex-wife once.
40:42 And we were reporting from a warlord's base.
40:46 I was standing on the side taking some notes.
40:48 And I looked up, and she was standing there saying to the warlord, "You've been very bad."
40:54 And he was sitting on a little bucket, you know, upturned bucket, and he was sort of
40:58 listening to her.
40:59 And she said, "You will stop doing this."
41:01 And he was like, "Yes, Mama."
41:03 And she was like, "You've been very bad.
41:06 You shouldn't do this."
41:07 And he was like, "No, Mama."
41:08 And I remember watching that scene and thinking, "There's no way I could pull that off."
41:14 As a man, I just don't have that kind of...
41:17 I can't establish that kind of relationship.
41:20 My point is that I think gender, our backgrounds, allow us to experience these places and conflicts
41:28 in different ways.
41:29 And there's a richness to each of us describing the experience that we've had.
41:36 But I guess to the question about diplomats and ego, of course, there's a degree of ego
41:43 and of course, there's a degree of thrill.
41:46 But I would say, I would come back to my previous answer that I think there's a strong...
41:50 For those of us who continue this work, I would say maybe in the right spirit, I think
41:58 the sense of service is far more important.
42:02 Many of these activists, environmental defenders, or people living in these conflict zones are
42:06 extremely isolated.
42:08 And just showing up can mean...
42:11 Just someone like Roger or myself or all the other war correspondents, just us showing
42:16 up can mean the world to them.
42:18 And one of the places I went to, I showed up at in the Central African Republic, the
42:22 first thing they asked me, they didn't have water, they didn't have food, they didn't
42:25 have medicine.
42:26 The first thing they asked me was, "Do people know?
42:29 Do other people know?"
42:30 And apparently, this was also the question that many residents of concentration camps
42:36 asked the first rabbis and soldiers who opened up those camps, "Do people know?"
42:41 And it's really powerful and really important because if other people know, there's hope.
42:47 And often, it's the journalist who makes that link.
42:50 Thank you.
42:51 Roger, to the question of...
42:53 Which I think it was about media bias, the blends of media on the Gaza...
42:58 I'll just say one word on the first question.
43:03 You used the word heroism.
43:05 I would not use that word.
43:07 The heroism, if there is any, is the people who are living and surviving through these
43:12 wars.
43:13 It is not us.
43:16 And if we weren't there, who would report on the extraordinary diplomacy, let us say,
43:21 of Richard Holbrooke, who brought the war in Bosnia to an end?
43:27 And who would criticize the fecklessness of the diplomats who up to then had said, "This
43:33 conflict's been going on for a thousand years.
43:36 There is no possible solution."
43:37 No, the New York Times does not expect any particular narrative.
43:44 The New York Times, in any place, and certainly in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, wants
43:54 reporters to go there and look, see, feel all the things I was saying, and try to write,
44:03 paint as fair and accurate a picture as possible.
44:09 That said, in this conflict, virtually nobody will ever be satisfied.
44:16 Every word can detonate like a small bomb.
44:22 And the conflict is a kind of Rorsach test.
44:25 Two people will look at the same front page, and one person will say, "I can't believe
44:31 how pro-Palestinian you are.
44:33 It's absolutely appalling."
44:35 And another will say, "I just can't believe you said that.
44:38 This is totally pro-Israeli coverage of the war, or count of the war."
44:46 So it's extremely difficult.
44:51 We have had many, many reporters on the ground, in the West Bank, in Israel.
44:58 Gaza, of course, has been much more difficult, much more difficult, and we've had to rely
45:04 on, overwhelmingly, on local reporters, photographers, who are also trying to protect their families
45:15 from the Israeli bombardment that followed the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.
45:24 So it isn't easy.
45:28 It's the most difficult conflict in the world to cover.
45:32 But no, there is no request for a certain narrative.
45:36 Of course, social media goes crazy.
45:40 As long as social media goes crazy on both sides, then maybe we're doing something right.
45:48 There was a...
45:50 There's online in the New York Times website, there is a piece that Roger wrote.
45:54 He's recently spent quite a long time in the West Bank.
45:57 And if you want an example of what I believe is nuanced balance reporting, you should read
46:01 that.
46:02 It's an excellent piece coming out in print this coming Sunday.
46:04 I'm going to go to this side.
46:05 We've got two more questions, I think, time for this gentleman here.
46:08 So you...
46:10 Yes, you.
46:11 You point...
46:12 And there's a...
46:13 Where?
46:14 A young lady.
46:15 And then this lady here.
46:16 We're going to go to...
46:17 Is it working now?
46:33 Is it working?
46:34 Yeah, there we go.
46:36 As a long time member of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, I've witnessed the steady
46:43 march towards extinction of the species of foreign correspondent.
46:49 And I wonder how we're going to write war if we don't have any more foreign correspondents.
46:55 That's part one.
46:56 A small part two, where in Mexico, Anjan?
47:00 Give us the dateline.
47:01 Which state?
47:02 Is it Oaxaca?
47:03 Where?
47:04 Oaxaca.
47:05 And this lady here.
47:06 Yeah.
47:07 Good evening, sirs.
47:08 Mr. Cohen, referring to covering war in the middle of it in person, you mentioned that
47:16 not a lot of people do that these days.
47:19 What factors do you think in the new age journalism have contributed to them shying away from
47:25 this occupational hazard, so to speak?
47:28 Sorry, I couldn't catch the question.
47:29 Could you just repeat that a bit?
47:30 All right.
47:31 Maybe speaking slowly and loud.
47:32 All right.
47:33 Referring to the war in the middle of it in person, sorry, referring to covering the
47:38 war in the middle of it in person, you mentioned that not a lot of people do that these days.
47:44 What factors do you think in the new age journalism have contributed to them shying away from
47:51 this occupational hazard, so to speak?
47:54 Well, to that question, I think there's been...
48:01 Well, so much information is available so easily that I think people think sometimes,
48:10 what more can I add by going there, when in fact, going there is everything.
48:15 The view from the ground is everything.
48:18 There are financial considerations.
48:22 The media business has been completely transformed over the last 20 years.
48:29 And the New York Times, for example, had to change its business model completely from
48:34 an advertisement-driven business, advertisements in newspapers, to being a global digital subscription
48:41 business.
48:42 And we almost didn't survive, but we did.
48:45 Lots of other publications did not.
48:47 We no longer have the means to send journalists to these far-flung areas.
48:56 Date lines have been devalued.
48:57 People write from everywhere.
48:59 Date lines are very important, because if there's a date line, you're there, right?
49:05 And that goes to the question about the dwindling Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo.
49:13 I already have an image of you there, sipping sake and red wine.
49:21 Okay.
49:22 Yeah, I used to be a member of the Stampa Estere Club in Rome.
49:26 It was a lot of fun in the '80s.
49:28 Somehow we had a lot more time.
49:32 When I was based in Brazil, later in the '80s, my colleagues -- I was under the Wall Street
49:37 Journal -- and my colleague from the New York Times, Alan Riding, and from the FT, Ivo Dorny,
49:42 we would have a lunch once a month.
49:45 And the toast at this lunch was always, "Yesterday's news, today's story."
49:53 Because we would read the papers and write something or other.
49:57 So anyway, those days are gone.
49:59 I think -- I don't know.
50:01 I mean, the New York Times, I think, will go on and on and on, sending large numbers
50:07 of correspondents around the world to cover the world.
50:12 I think it'll be more and more difficult for many organizations to do that.
50:20 And there will be other forms of correspondence that take its place.
50:25 And some of that, Anjan is -- will be very, very good and very, very important.
50:32 Anjan, you need to respond to the question about where are Mexicans -- unfortunately,
50:35 we have to bring it to a close.
50:37 Yeah, I'll be quick.
50:40 I think as foreign correspondents, we have -- to Roger's point about us not being heroes
50:44 -- we have a degree of protection.
50:47 I can say things that a Mexican reporter can't.
50:50 Yesterday, I was speaking to a researcher on cartels, and I was asking him questions,
50:54 and he said, "The questions you're asking me are probably the single most dangerous
51:01 questions or, you know, set of questions in Mexico to be investigating.
51:06 And a Mexican reporter, nine out of ten, he'll be killed.
51:10 But you, maybe you have a chance, because you're foreign."
51:14 And so I think we have a degree of, you know, a certain obligation, responsibility to investigate
51:19 what we -- what others can't, because we're protected.
51:22 And to your question about the, you know, where in Mexico, it's all over.
51:25 I'm mostly been in the south, in Michoacan, in Guerrero, in Oaxaca, in Chiapas.
51:32 I was just in Chiapas for three weeks.
51:34 So, yeah.
51:35 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening.
51:37 Thank you for your questions.
51:38 And thank you to our panelists.
51:40 Thank you.
51:41 Subscribe to One India channel and never miss an update.
51:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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