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Five years ago, American journalism looked out its proverbial window, saw the awesome relevance of foreign news, and vowed to do better. Since then there has been some stellar reporting from Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. There have also been some costly journalistic failures. In our cover story, Eric Umansky examines one of them — the coverage of torture — and concludes that the press was late on this story in large part because of a reluctance to believe that Americans would do those things, and, at the same time, a squeamishness about exposing such behavior in the wake of September 11. Earlier and better reporting on torture might have changed history. Now comes another challenge — Iran. In his essay on a slew of new books about that nation, Bill Berkeley demonstrates how dangerously ill-informed the press is about one of our most complicated antagonists. Both of these failures stem from an inability to see beyond the prism of the West. Both could be remedied with more foreign bureaus, more reporters and editors who know the rest of the world inside and out. We vowed to do better. It’s time to make good on that promise.
To read the articles in the September/October 2006 issue, click here.
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