How To Do It
My colleague Captain Cabernet has already posted on DA on Darfur, so this may be somewhat OT. Readers who know me will know that I hold William Deedes, former editor of the Torygraph, former foreign correspondent, contemporary of and model for Evelyn Waugh, in the highest esteem.
This is how you write about Darfur. No swinging certainties that if it's in Africa, it must be like Rwanda. Just paragraph of falsifiable statements after paragraph of same. Read, and learn:
When Khartoum struck oil in southern and south-western Sudan in 1975, its influence in the world multiplied. From being regarded as a somewhat remote country, it began to win friends.
The National Petroleum Company of oil-thirsty China built a pipeline across cruel country to Port Sudan and several countries became Khartoum's clients.
The oil fields were fiercely protected from attack. In the prolonged war being waged between Khartoum and southern Sudan, the south reckoned that oil revenues would fortify Khartoum's hand against it.
Now, these facts may be wrong. I'm not there. I can't check. But they are clear. They are gainsayable, and with very little wriggle room. This is how journalism should be.
Put it like this: when I read a columnist, I expect him to know more than I can adduce from all facts as reported. If he's to be an authority, he has to add something essential to what he writes. Going there, or having been there counts for a great deal. Desk-anchorites don't make it, guys.
Note to Oliver Kamm: this is why John Pilger is cool, and you're not, sorry.
This is how you write about Darfur. No swinging certainties that if it's in Africa, it must be like Rwanda. Just paragraph of falsifiable statements after paragraph of same. Read, and learn:
When Khartoum struck oil in southern and south-western Sudan in 1975, its influence in the world multiplied. From being regarded as a somewhat remote country, it began to win friends.
The National Petroleum Company of oil-thirsty China built a pipeline across cruel country to Port Sudan and several countries became Khartoum's clients.
The oil fields were fiercely protected from attack. In the prolonged war being waged between Khartoum and southern Sudan, the south reckoned that oil revenues would fortify Khartoum's hand against it.
Now, these facts may be wrong. I'm not there. I can't check. But they are clear. They are gainsayable, and with very little wriggle room. This is how journalism should be.
Put it like this: when I read a columnist, I expect him to know more than I can adduce from all facts as reported. If he's to be an authority, he has to add something essential to what he writes. Going there, or having been there counts for a great deal. Desk-anchorites don't make it, guys.
Note to Oliver Kamm: this is why John Pilger is cool, and you're not, sorry.
posted by The Rioja Kid at 9/22/2006 02:41:00 AM
2 Comments:
No, not me, it was other BB.
I'm sorry, but no way are those safari suits "cool." The guy looks like he walked out of a St Bruno print add circa 1976. Kamm probably wears expensively-cut dark business suits, if the well-groomed mugshot on his blog is anything to go by.
Or am I missing the point?
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