Edited by author 03-17-2003 10:47 PM
"Our correspondents (BBC) inside Baghdad, say they have seen few preparations for war." 03/17/03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2856395.stm

I'm sad today...alarmed and frankly confused. I absolutely object to this war, but am troubled with how the global community is dealing with the present situation. The word "cooperation" has transformed into "multi-lateral." That's kind of like having sex with your clothes on.

Rhetoric abounds, but action is nowhere to be seen, aside from Mr. Bush's sword rattling. I admire the courage of the people who are at risk to "get the story," but wonder what engine they ultimately feed, regardless of their politics. Think about Chile in 1973. This is different only with respect to Bush's complete openness about his plans to remove a leader, no matter what the cost.

The difference in the media between the two "actions" is that one war didn't make money for press, the other does, and will. Your participation in some ways feeds the power of terror. If none of you showed up, the guns would fire less brightly.

I pray that none of you is injured in your dedication to tell stories. Just think hard about your role in the larger one.

Hopefully,
Michael Shea

I would urge you to be extremly prudent around the oil field, i got a really bad feeling about this. Theses fields may not be 'only' rigged with explosives. Don't take any chance, stay clear from theses zones at least unless the troops have secured the area. Thanks for a great job reporting the events anyway.

Hi, Dana -- to answer your question about how Kevin posts to the blog: All of Kevin's writing on the blog is 100% Kevin's.

As you might imagine, Internet connectivity in the areas where he's covering news right now is very poor (or simply unavailable), so posting text or images directly to the blog via Blogger's web interface generally isn't practical for him. He is able to forward us text and image posts by e-mail, which we plug into the blog on his behalf.

Kevinsites.net runs on Blogger, which does offer a function through which one can post to a blog by sending an e-mail to a special e-mail address. Unfortunately that function is known to be pretty buggy and unreliable, and given the special circumstances under which Kevin is writing and publishing to his blog, we don't want to chance missing anything he's trying to post.

Audblog posts are, as David U. explained, phoned in directly to the blog by Kevin via his satellite phone.

--XJ

Stay safe, and good job :)

Xeni ----- there are more Internet cafes in northern Iraq then inside Iraq. Thy have even broadband sattelite connection in Hewler (Arbil). Kevin was in Halabja when he mentiond poor internet connection. Halbja is an area close to the terrorist camp of the group "Ansar-al -islam", which Colin Powell adressed in his speech in FN for about a month ago.
 These extremist oppose usage of everything from tv, music recorder to internet...
So we hope to see more picture on this blog in the future.

Keep up the good work Kevin, and stay safe!

Kris
Scotland

Edited by author 03-18-2003 07:37 AM
Darkness is falling. The US' moral standing among the nations of the world is ebbing. Armies are about to invade a sovereign, independent state in the Middle-East, that is not at war with anybody. The last time this happened, ten years ago, the agressor became an outcast in the world community. By attacking Iraq, President Bush is regrettably lowering himself, and his mostly apathetic nation, to the level of the Butcher of Baghdad. The world mourns the loss of sanity in Washington, as well as the loss of human lives in Iraq.

First of all, I wanna say that this isn't a personal attack on Kevin Sites. This is more about a trend that's worrisome to me.

I'm disturbed that this blog is going to be really popular and that it will overshadow whatever other stories that Kevin files with CNN.

I'm worried that this will be Arthur Kent all over again. That this marks the beginning of a new kind of Reality TV News. It strikes me that this is frighteningly like the way the US controlled access during the original gulf war: keep the reporters in controlled areas and make it more about personalities than actual substantive stories about the war itself. "Look at Bernie Shaw holed up in the Hilton. Isn't he brave? Look, it's Geraldo and he's wearing a flak-jacket."
 
At it's worst, it is reactive journalism that puts the focus on a tv journalist's personal minutia than it does about stories that give us real context for this war. We're bound to get dramatic descriptions filled with tracer fire and Geraldo-style "bravery" from the TV journalists that piques our purient interest in seeing things "live from Bagdad" that we'll completely forgive the utter lack of context or relevance of the story. We'll start to believe that a shaky handy-cam signifies the "real story" and the well-researched story won't be real enough. "Bagdad Witch Project" anyone?
 
I *do* think that blogs are important and I am glad that blogs are coming in from all over the place to add to the voices that we get about the war. I am particularly glad to see that we're getting blogs from Iraqi bloggers.

I'm disturbed that this blog is going to be really popular and that it will overshadow whatever other stories that Kevin files with CNN.

I valid concern, I suppose, but what's the alternative? DDOS kevinsites.com? I think what you're running into isn't a failing of blogging, but rather a failing of tradional media. It's CNN's choice whether to emphasize Wolf qua Wolf when they've got nothing else to show. That's the treachery of a 24 hour news service. The beauty of blogs is that they're only updated when the blogger has something to say (one hopes, anyway).

I think some of it is also the emphasis on the medium over the message.

That somehow this is important because it's a blog, not because of the content that Kevin is posting. Somehow we're lulled into believing this is more real or true than traditional media.

And I completely agree that this is a problem with a lot of traditional media. But sites like this are writing the rules of professional journalist blogs (jlogs?) now and I think maybe the rules should be different and we should look at the content with a more critical eye?

Why is a blog different than a regular story filed via TV, news website, print journalism, etc? What makes a blog more or less true?

Traditional media serves many masters - the editor(s), the publisher(s), the company that owns the media source, the advertisers, even just the constraints and priorities of "other" news - i.e. what gets to be on Page 1 is dependant on many factors - most outside of the control of the journalist.

A blog, in contrast, is generally an individual voice (or a group of voices), yes still serving some "masters" but generally far fewer than in "traditional" media - in large part because the costs are significently lower.

Further, a blog is generally more a commentary or opinion piece than "hard" news - so different rules apply (in terms of language, tone, focus etc).

The negative is that all these other voices and forces do serve a valuable purpose - often they clarify the journalist's original writing (short is harder than long), sometimes they add valuable insight/information.

Here in Chicago, there is a "traditional" media version of this conflict - the local papers have each launched a cheaper tabloid (Red Eye by the Chicago Tribune and Red Streak by the Chicago Sun Times) both have far less editing than their parent papers, and often run stories in their original as submitted by the journalist form - the journalists themselves have commented that this is not always a good thing...

Geraldo be damned, it *is* important for us to be thinking about the way that journalism is created, especially in Pentagon-orchestrated theaters of war. IF ONLY we could have had journo blogs during the Gulf War. Course, I'd have to vomit a lot if it was Geraldo...

Godspeed, Kevin. Blog on.

Edited by author 03-19-2003 09:51 AM
Thanks from Cologne,Germany.

As I write this, the war probably will have begun. Thank you for the images. Thank you for the feel of the people and the place. This is so sad. I am happy to be here, safe in Canada, far from the war, and far from the looming image of Big Brother down South.

All I know is that Kevin is a total hottie