Embedded journalist and author George Parker spoke at the Chazen Museum of Art Wednesday night on the relationship between the Iraq War and journalism. Parker, who is known for his ground coverage of the war as well as Sierra Leone's civil war, was part of the Center for the Humanities' Without Bounds lecture series.
As someone who has been to Iraq and back on numerous occasions, Parker discussed the unprecedented dissatisfaction of the American public toward journalists in Iraq today.
Audiences are so desperate to be told one way or the other whether … Iraq is a success or failure, the press must declare colors and choose sides,\ Parker said.
According to Parker, the Iraq war is far too complicated to simply pick a side, and many journalists fall victim to simply going into Iraq, confirming their biases and leaving. Parker said he specifically tried to avoid this.
""Talk to 50 different Iraqis, and you'll get 50 accounts of what this war is about,"" he said. ""[A final word on the war] is the last thing you want to give, because you know you'll go out tomorrow and discover it is much more complicated.""
Because of these challenges, Parker said he chose to focus on individual stories of Iraqis and take more of a novelist's approach for his articles written for The New Yorker.
Center for the Humanities Director Susanne Wofford said she brought Parker to Madison hoping he would convey this message.
""I felt that he would bring this commitment to the fact that it is more complicated than our media tends to want things to be,"" Wofford said of the Iraq war.
Parker cited other challenges facing American journalists in Iraq, including the growing violence and danger they must deal with in order to get a story.
""The second you step into Iraq, there's a $50,000 bounty on your head,"" he said. ""You're constantly in fear of being prey.""
This danger, Parker said, has caused the ""spotlight"" of coverage of the war to diminish every time he has gone back.
Zane Householder, one of the few student attendees of the lecture, said he enjoyed Parker's discussion of the ""age of polarization.""
""I felt the lecture was a very refreshing point of view,"" Householder said.
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