** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **

Dahr Jamail - Dateline: Baghdad

All journalists have perspectives that color and shape their
reporting. Many factors influence not just what questions get asked
but what issues get reported on in the first place. It takes much
more work to remain objective when some of the people journalists
cover are similar to them in terms of class and culture while others
are very different. For embedded reporters in a war zone, there are
further complications. They travel, eat, sleep and are protected by
the soldiers they are with. There is literally no distance between
the journalists and the troops thus their vision can easily be
blurred. This has been a particular problem with reporting in Iraq.

Dahr Jamail, an American, saw these problems of perspective clouding
the reporting about the war in the U.S. media. He decided to do
something about it. He went to Iraq where he reports outside the
bubble of American control. His articles appear in The Guardian and
The Nation. He also posts his dispatches on his own widely read
website, dahrjamailiraq.com.

This interview with David Barsamian will be broadcast on Alternative Radio. You may listen to it on your local station, or stream it from the internet from that station at the time of broadcast.
Date & Time: Tuesday, Sept 13, 1400-1459ET