First of all I have to say I strongly agree Fisk that “I hate the ‘what and where’ stories that leaves out ‘why’”.
My professor told me that a good journalistic article should answer enough questions but also be able to make the readers raise valuable questions. I think there is nothing wrong to seek the answer to “why”.
At least we should not leave out the “why”.
Here I want to talk about my opinion on why people do not want to face the “why” and I think it is because of the biasness and stereotype.
The certain case, the controversy that Fisk had brought to us is from the angle of reporting. I cannot condemn someone that they are biased in his article, although I think Fisk is not wrong at all and the readers are someone who is really biased. Because they just chose their side naturally without realizing that they have already put themselves in a certain position before they started writing the first word in their email or letter for criticizing Fisk. I mean, some concepts which are deeply-rooted in their mind push people choose their side.
For example, someone in my writing class once asked me about the Tibet thing. I just simply answered Tibet is undoubtedly a part of China, definitely, no question. Then my classmate said he does not want to be offensive, but, “We are just sympathetic to those people who fight for freedom.” Then I said to him, probably like most of Chinese people will say: we don’t treat people who live in Tibet area as slaves. They are enjoying their freedom now. They do not have to FIGHT for their freedom.
Therefore, it is quite obvious that there won’t be any article praising the so-called freedom-pursuing behavior in Chinese newspaper, if a Chinese journalist chooses to stand beside those people who use needles with HIV to attack healthy people in China, the journalist will definitely be drowned by the spit from the public. However, we have to face the reality that newspapers in other countries might think in a different way: although the behavior is creepy and extreme; it is still understandable because those people are “fighting for freedom”. Two different angles on the same thing usually make the whole thing different. This is bias to me, but when a concept has become a commonsense in a certain area, it is the truth, the fact, not the biasness.
This kind of bias is tricky; I will call it an invisible one. As far as I am concerned, this kind of bias is protected by patriotic feeling, religion loyalty, commonsense, or stereotype. As Fisk mentioned in his article: “We were, after all, supposed to be liberating these people, not killing their relatives.”
However, the reality is, yes, you are killing people’s relatives. If someone wants to defend this by the purpose of killing, I will treat his words as someone is starting to find an excuse for his behavior.
I can understand why the public had those sharp reactions to Fisk’s article; he did the thing which is similar as the one I raised for example earlier. The degree of objectivity in his article will be highly rated if the readers are Afghanistan people. Nevertheless I respect that he can write an article from a different angle.
About the public, if they cannot see the reality, at least they should bravely face it when someone points it out. The reality may go against, or even destroy the readers’ original values of world, values of life or something, but I believe the truth is usually cruel. When the truth goes against my wish, I do not want to act as an ostrich.
I feel there is nothing wrong that Fisk clarified something for Afghanistan people in the article; there is nothing wrong that American people feel uncomfortable to read about this. However, it is really unreasonable for those editors to delete some important attributes, in order to make Afghanistan people look like mobs. Although there are mobs in Afghanistan for sure, not all of them are. To create stereotype or generalize about people from stereotype is not a rational behavior, especially for people who get paid to be a fair witness.
