Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 1 | The International Reporting Project: Giving Journalists A New Perspective On the News, page 3 (low-bandwidth)

It was a great deal to absorb. “The evaluation at the end of the trip will help us really understand whether we met the editors’ expectations,” said Leif, “and how, if at all, their experiences will influence the way they handle foreign coverage from this region in the future. We haven’t pushed any particular point of view,” Leif added. “We haven’t told the journalists what to ask or tried to achieve any outcome other than adding to their depth of knowledge.” But would any of this make a difference—would it really enrich and broaden the editors’ understanding of the international issues they’d be asked to deal with when they got back to work? For Schidlovsky and Leif, an affirmative answer to those questions would define success.

“We have always tried to be fair in selecting stories and pictures from the region,” Ron Royhab the editor and chief of the Toledo Blade in Ohio wrote in his evaluation, “but now I am asking myself if we do enough to explain the serious and complex issues. I am also concerned that the media often gives the impression that every street in Lebanon and the entire region is filled with demonstrations and conflicts with police, military and civilian targets. I will certainly be looking for more in-depth material that goes beyond the news of the day.”

For most of the editors, the exhilaration of on-the-ground-learning had meant success. They shared an enthusiasm that comes from having pulled back a curtain and looked in on a world that was no longer so obscure.

“This will help me to steer my reporters harder in the right direction. They know more than I do, but I can push them for more depth. I now know what questions to raise,” Steve Butler of Knight Ridder said. Butler and others admitted that the Iraq war required a depth of knowledge no Pentagon briefing could prepare them for. Understanding the conflict in Iraq meant having a better understanding of the Shiite religion, the forces and power that shape Islam and the relationships between groups like the Sunnis and Shiia.

“I wanted to know more about the Islamic world and really see what life is like in a society rising up out of the conflict in Lebanon,” Arlene Getz said. Once leery of the heavily lecture-dominated schedule of the trip, she now saw it as a good mix and such a foundation-sponsored study tour as a major plus. “At the moment,” she continued, “American society is in the thick of a conflict and people really need to know and understand exactly what’s going on. Good journalists have a critical role to play in informing the public.”

For James Smith, the real motivation for participating in IRP was to learn about this part of the world where America’s daily coverage is focused. But he discovered something equally enriching in becoming part of a community of editors. “I wanted a chance to share impressions with colleagues and talk with peers who face the same challenges as I do all the time.” On the domestic side of the news business, Smith pointed to problems such as tightening budgets, 24/7 decision-making and news operations that are perpetually short-staffed, then segued into concerns about the security of reporters working in war zones. Realizing that just about everybody had these same problems “was an unexpected benefit,” Smith said, “and very helpful.”

Iowa’s Cedar Rapids Gazette does not have a string of foreign correspondents making sense of the world for its readers, a group who become unduly important every four years when the presidential election season begins in that state. Mark Bowden, the Gazette editor, shapes the world view of many of those voters, and for him, this trip was his first experience in the Middle East. “We hear so much in the news about Islam being the precipitator of the conflict and what we have learned in a very short time is that the issues are much more complex: there is a conflict between religion, culture and tradition at work here. It’s been a very helpful experience from that context.” If this study tour ends up helping Bowden think differently about foreign coverage, he also insisted it would have an impact on how he will assign and tell stories about events in his local area where there is a strong Syrian Islamic community.

For Miriam Pepper, the editorial page editor at the Kansas City Star who directs the paper’s policy and chooses the op-eds that expand opinion for her readers, meeting some of the analysts and journalists whose work from the Middle East she sometimes publishes was critical. “One problem we’ve always had is finding pro-Palestinian pieces to run in the paper that are factual and reflect honest opinions. I think I’m in a lot better position now to recognize what views are truly representative of the region.”

Based on the comments of the journalists who participated in the Gatekeeper Editors’ trip to Syria and Lebanon, the program, with its objective, in-depth and open-minded introduction to the Islamic world and how many Muslims living in the Middle East view America, was clearly an unqualified success, and reinforced the idea that journalism can best serve a nation when it tells a story informed by the facts, buttressed by experience, and unclouded by bias or political influence. How much the program will be able to improve journalism as a whole is a question open for debate, but there was no doubt that it had deeply affected these thirteen editors, who left with more understanding than when they arrived.

“If there are foundations that want to help shape American foreign policy, the International Reporting Project is certainly an effective mechanism to consider,” Smith concluded, echoing the sentiments of many others in the group. “As editors and reporters, we are a channel to a far greater number of people. Our work magnifies the impact of the news. Our readers are the American people, and they depend on us to tell them the truth.”