Reporting The Chaos, The End And Moving On

Michael Hedges January 3, 2022 - Follow on Twitter

A shortened attention span is the overriding fact of life for the news media. Place blame on social media, if you want. The average user “scrolls through” TikTok 45 minutes each day. Every item is ”breaking news” of one sort or another. Google Trends enumerated 57 subjects attracting top attention throughout 2021, only 10 for more than a fortnight. Coronavirus, obviously, held attention all year.

The fall of Kabul to Islamist extremists held the attention of news users for about two weeks, according to Google Trends, cited by news portal Axios (December 30). During August international news media rigorously reported the wave of change sweeping over Afghanistan. The focus was, understandably, on the final withdrawal of Western troops. The backstory was the calibrated return of Islamist militants, subduing resistance in the provinces before surrounding and entering Kabul.

For months the militants targeted Afghan and foreign reporters and news crews. In its 2020 report on violence and threats toward journalists, the Afghanistan Journalist’s Center noted eight media workers killed and 19 injured, most directly attributed to militants. Radio Azadi reporter Elias Daei was killed in Helmand province, blown up by a car bomb in November. Radio Azadi is part of US-funded international broadcaster RFE/RL. Enkaas TV and Radio news anchor Malala Maiwand was killed by gunmen in Nangarhar province a month later. Islamic State (IS), rival of the Taliban, claimed responsibility.

None of this was news. “Journalists in the war-ravaged country continue to walk a tightrope, reporting daily incidents of violence under dangerous and life-threatening conditions,” wrote Syed Zafar Mehdi for Tehran (Iran) Times (October 17, 2018). “Over the years, many journalists have suffered casualties in the war that has now stretched into its 18th year. But, despite ominous threats and heavy odds, they have upheld the highest ideals of journalism under extremely trying conditions.”

As militant activity in the southern and eastern provinces sharply increased directly after the April announcement of imminent draw-down of US forces!. Reporters and news crews were in the crossfire with deadly affect. By June, casualties were mounting. Reuters photojournalist Danish Siddiqui was shot dead “while covering a clash between Afghan security forces and Taliban fighters near a border crossing with Pakistan,” reported Reuters (July 16, 2021).

Seminars on safety for media workers in Afghanistan had been held with some regularity over the years. In the last days of July, two training courses were held in Kabul, organized and prepared by Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) on behalf of its Afghan affiliate Center for the Protection of Afghan Women Journalists (CPAWJ). The seminars served 50 mostly radio and television media workers, more than half women. In March CPAWJ reported a sharp rise in threats toward women media workers through “fundamentalist propaganda.” Three women media workers were murdered in the first eight months of 2021.

“Over the past few years, the Taliban have repeatedly carried out attacks in which media workers have been killed,” said RSF Germany managing director Christian Mihr, in a statement (August 14). “With the further advance of the extremist group, there is a threat of further murders of journalists and, at the same time, an undersupply of information for the population.” In its 2021 World Press Freedom Index, published in April 2021, RSF ranked Afghanistan 122nd of 180 countries, between Nicaragua and Chad.

As Taliban militants finally entered Kabul August 15 Afghan president Ashraf Ghani abruptly exited. Hours, perhaps minutes before, the Afghan Air Force fled. To all observers, the message was clear: this is going to get very ugly very fast. A collapsing Afghan government was an understatement.

As instability mounted, many media workers stayed a certain distance. Hours before the Taliban sealed off access to the Kabul airport, Western news agencies evacuated international correspondents and reporters, leaving the work to terrified but determined locals. "I'm worried,” said Afghan freelance reporter Zubair Babakarkhail to NPR (August 18). “That's why I'm doing my work while I'm hiding at home.”

CNN chief international correspondent and war reporting veteran Clarissa Ward became the face of reporting from Kabul during the those wild hours and days. She had arrived in Afghanistan about two weeks earlier and had been reporting from the provinces. In Kabul on the day the Taliban declared their control over the country, she went to the streets with a producer and camera operator. In a now famous clip, they were live on CNN (August 18) when a gunshot rang out. She flinched, very slightly.

“It was quickly very clear that they (the Taliban) wanted to talk,” she said to the Washingtonian (September 13). “That they were jubilant in their moment of victory and welcomed the world spotlight.” She decamped for Doha and then France a few days later. “The well-established media infrastructure in Kabul, which had developed over two decades, has basically evaporated,” said CNN SVP of international news gathering Deborah Rayner to Vanity Fair (August 27).

Less noted was the work of 24 year old Tolo TV News news anchor Beheshta Arghand gracefully interviewing senior Taliban spokesperson Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad (August 17). He had not been on the “studio guest” list and had never before been interviewed by a woman on an Afghan TV channel. She asked tough questions. “It did not seem it was a big issue for him,” she said, quoted by The Australian (August 19), “but it was a big issue for me.”

Two days later Ms Arghand interviewed Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai live, another first on Afghan television. Ms Yousafzai had been shot and seriously wounded in a 2012 Pakistani Taliban assassination attempt. After reaching out to Ms Yousafzai, Ms Arghand was evacuated by Qatar Air Force (August 24) with several family members. "I left the country because, like millions of people, I fear the Taliban,” she told CNN (August 30). "I worked there for one month and 20 days, then the Taliban came.”

“Extraordinary, extraordinary courage. I mean I can’t tell you what character these women have,” Moby Group chief executive Saad Mohseni, Tolo TV News owner. “The guys too, but for women to be doing what they’re doing You cannot get better reporters than these. I’m sure they’re nervous and I’m sure they’re scared but they’re courageous, despite the fears they may have. Almost all our well known reporters and journalists have left," Mr. Mohseni said to CNN (August 29). “We have been working like crazy to replace them with new people. We have the twin challenge of getting people out (because they feel unsafe) and keeping the operation going.” Tolo TV News continues to broadcast, mostly remotely from Qatar, without women on-air.

As Taliban militants prepared to seize the moment, so to speak, of foreign troop withdrawals, so to speak, the host of privately owned Afghanistan TV Peace Studio’s live political debate show Pardaz, Mirwais Haidari Haqdoost, found himself surrounded by eight armed men who has entered the studio rather unannounced (August 27). Mr. Hagdoost maintained calm, barely, as a Taliban commander “urged” Afghans to "not worry at all. Stay and live in your home. We will protect you,” reported El Pais (August 31).

Taliban extremists have never had high regard for reporters, producers, photographers and fixers or the outlets for which they work, viewing them all as “the infidel invasion.” For now most reliable reporting from Afghanistan is in the hands of free-lancers. The Afghanistan news cycle closed, moving on to hurricanes.

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