I used to think that our underplayed, underpromoted series of “Media Mangles” didn’t get much attention, except by maybe a small contingent of faithful Carolina Journal Online readers. But lo and behold, after my piece last week about the woefully inadequate media coverage of the massive freedom protest against Syria in Beirut, I heard from a freelance reporter, Mitchell Prothero, whom I had praised. He wanted to clear up my understanding on how his piece came about and why some of the other major newspapers weren’t up to snuff on the story:
I saw your piece. Just to clear a few things up, I am the former UPI Baghdad bureau chief, and am now a freelance photographer/writer. I sometimes work for the Washington Times, mostly from here in Beirut but also write regularly for Salon.com, the London Observer, Sunday Times of London, and a bunch of others.
I will say that I had returned home to Beirut the day after Hariri’s death from Baghdad and was shocked to see how little people cared. Most papers should have known as I was hammering away at editors warning them that a Kiev-style takedown was coming. Only the Observer and Washington Times bought it intially. So they do deserve credit for being forward looking. But I think that the Washington Times did have a political reason, on top of good journalistic instincts, to highlight anything that dug at Syria.
To defend those editors that blew me off, honestly, they have limited slots for Middle East coverage. Israel, Iraq and President Bush constantly mentioning the subjects ended up eating a lot of coverage. I do think the media was caught with its pants down, but I doubt the lack of coverage was political. Editors I pitched to were so preoccupied with other stories, and not many folks keep staff in Beirut. Like me, journalists here end up in Iraq or wherever most of the time.
