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Reflections on Covering Afghanistan
October 27, 2022
Over a year after the fall of Kabul, we asked journalists to reflect on their experiences of working in Afghanistan and what they’ve learned since.
Getty Images / Marcus Yam
In August 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, the news was dominated by footage of Taliban fighters entering Kabul, crowds surging around the airport, evacuation flights packed. The coverage emphasised the important, urgent role that journalists play in documenting America's longest war, and shaping Afghanistan's recent past and future. It also put a spotlight on the grave responsibilities and challenges faced by those covering the region – the enormous complexities bound with their work.
Recent decades have indeed seen a body of vital reporting produced from Afghanistan. Exemplifying the highest standards of the craft, journalists from around the world have put themselves at risk to expose abuses of power, hold institutions to account and bring forth suppressed voices, stories and narratives. But there were also many missteps. At times, Western newsrooms failed to elevate and protect their Afghan colleagues. Some coverage was slanted and one-dimensional, failing to interrogate the nuances of the conflict and its intersections with Afghan culture.
Debates about the role and responsibilities of the media in Afghanistan are ongoing, and as these debates continue, the Dart Center is launching a series of essays written by journalists who have worked in Afghanistan over a span of many years. The series will evolve, incorporating a growing number of perspectives, experiences and lessons learned. We hope they will provide a valuable resource and guide to others.
Scroll down for excerpts, and click the article sections to the right to read the full pieces.
Matthieu Aikins, Contributing Writer, The New York Times Magazine
"Despite the grave accusations that I made with those stories, my work was typically met with polite silence from the US government and the Washington press corps. This was an experience that I know was shared by many other freelancers who came from outside the establishment and didn't have access to official sources. It remained true even when I wrote my first piece for the New York Times Magazine, which laid out evidence that a US air strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital was the result of deliberate targeting by Afghan partners, as opposed to an accident as per the military’s investigation. Crickets.
Last summer was different. The drone strike took place inside the Afghan capital at a moment when the whole world was watching. Working with the Visual Investigations team, I was able to quickly put together damning evidence, including surveillance footage, that the military's version was false. The New York Times’ investigation, along with critical reporting by other news outlets, forced the military to quickly acknowledge that it had targeted an innocent man, killing him and his family. General Milley apologized."
Khojasta Sameyee, Editor in Chief, War and Peace Daily
"Before August 2021, we had everything: Freedom of speech, independent media, and a newly-grown democracy. Schools and universities were open for both boys and girls. Women were working in different fields and had their own, fledgling rights. Alongside running my newspaper, I planned to celebrate the publishing of a book I wrote with my brother called, “The Mountains Have Witnessed”. I was also going to complete my MBA.
This dream didn’t last long. It disappeared with the Taliban, when I lost my country and everything I had."
Seamus Murphy, Photographer and Author, "A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan"
"After 9/11, a spotlight shone on the country with a narrow and highly selective beam. Most western coverage focused on soldiers and citizens from their respective countries, not much attention was paid to Afghanistan and the Afghans. I hardly did any embeds with western military, as I was more interested in Afghans than in the foreign military in Afghanistan. “America’s Longest War” read the headlines in the run-up to the US withdrawal in 2021, positioning it as some sort of regrettable White Man’s Burden. This tidy version of history dated America’s involvement in Afghanistan from 9/11, absolving one of its chief protagonists of a wider, deeper responsibility. America had been actively involved and complicit in Afghanistan and its wars since the Soviet invasion from 1979 to 1988, and covertly, most likely, long before that. The chaos and betrayal of August 2021 was characteristically followed by silence."
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Kevin Sites, the award-winning journalist, covered virtually every major global hot spot as the first Internet correspondent for Yahoo! News. Beginning his journey with the anarchic chaos of Somalia in September 2005 and ending with the Israeli-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006, Sites talks with rebels and government troops, child soldiers and child brides, and features the people on every side, including those caught in the cross fire. His honest reporting helps destroy the myths of war by putting a human face on war's inhumanity.
Swimming with Warlords: A Dozen-Year Journey Across the Afghan War
Using his trademark immersive style, Kevin Sites uncovered surprising stories with unexpected truths. He swam in the Kunduz River with an infamous warlord named Nabi Gechi, who demonstrated both his fearsome killing skills as well as a genius for peaceful invention. Sites talked with ex-Taliban fighters, politicians, female cops, farmers, drug addicts, and diplomats, and patrolled with American and Afghan soldiers. In Swimming with Warlords he helps us to understand this kingdom of primitive beauty, dark mysteries, and savage violence, as well as the conflict that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives--and what we might expect tomorrow and in the years to come.
The Price They Paid is the stunning and dramatic true story of a legendary helicopter commander in Vietnam and the flight crews that followed him into the most intensive helicopter warfare ever—and how that brutal experience has changed their lives in the forty years since the war ended.
What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars
Most Americans are now familiar with PTSD and its prevalence among troops. In this groundbreaking book, David Wood examines the far more pervasive yet less understood experience of those we send to war: moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong that so often occurs in the impossible moral dilemmas of modern conflict.
Collective Conviction: The Story of Disaster Action
Collective Conviction tells the story of Disaster Action, a small charity founded in 1991 by survivors and bereaved people from the disasters of the late 1980s, including Zeebrugge, King's Cross, Clapham, Lockerbie, Hillsborough and the Marchioness. The aims were to create a health and safety culture in which disasters were less likely to occur and to support others affected by similar events.
When Lynne O’Donnell met Pauline and Margaret in Iraq she could never have guessed the wealth of stories she’d discover. Over tea the two women tell Lynne of their lives in the country: each having married Iraqi men had then relocated from England more than thirty years before.
Trauma Reporting A Journalist's Guide to Covering Sensitive Stories
Trauma Reporting provides vital information on developing a healthy, professional and respectful relationship with those who choose to tell their stories during times of trauma, distress or grief.
