Foreign correspondent Kathy Gannon lectures at Ryerson
Too many journalists who report from Afghanistan are getting the story wrong, says a senior Associated Press foreign correspondent.
Award winning journalist, Kathy Gannon has lived and worked in Afghanistan and the surrounding region since 1986. She recently released a book about her experiences called I, is for Infidel.
After leaving her hometown of Timmins’ Ontario and working across Canada, she has spent 20 years reporting from the region, Gannon feels disappointed in current reporters sticking too close to the Western forces, and not venturing beyond to find stories on their own.
“It’s our job as journalists to look beyond the official line and do the research,” she told Ryerson students last Thursday. “Post Sept. 11, we’re much less likely to ask the difficult questions,”
Gannon was this year’s speaker for the annual Atkinson lecture, named after former Toronto Star publisher Joseph Atkinson.
With a slideshow of pictures taken during her travels in Afghanistan and Pakistan serving as a backdrop, Gannon aired her frustrations with what she thinks the media and international troops are doing wrong.
After Sept. 11 Gannon saw news organizations scurrying to send reporters to the country when the Taliban was in power.
Gannon has been a keen observer of Afghanistan’s culture and politics.
During her time in the country, she has seen many of the same people who held positions of power in the pre-Taliban days return to government.
She doesn’t like what she sees.
“(These people) behaved exactly the same way they behaved the last time,”
Gannon said. As an example, she mentioned Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a man who had been fighting to control Kabul before the Taliban swept to power. Gannon said five women were raped and scalped by men loyal to Sayyaf, who recently spoke about Afghanistan’s constitution with Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Gannon was also critical of the international military effort in Afghanistan.
“The soldiers are so afraid…as soon as there’s any firing and explosions…they bring in B-52 (bombers) and bomb the village,” she said.
Gannon said soldiers are now doing more harm than good, and are creating new enemies in the process.
“You make 100 enemies for every person you might kill… That’s occurred because we went in with a lack of information, intelligence and good discussion,” Gannon said.
In her daily reporting Gannon avoids traveling with the military, and has never been an embedded reporter, although she does admit to having been stopped by soldiers who have demanded to see her identification. When meeting people and conducting interviews she refuses to wear a burka, a piece of clothing that covers the face, and is worn by Muslim women in some countries.
“It’s important to me if I’m covering these countries that I not be consumed by fear.”
She is currently Iran bureau chief designate for the Associated Press.
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