“You only see what you know – journalism as enlightenment?”

In April 2002, I travelled to Baghdad with a delegation. It was a delegation of about 100 activists who wanted to protest against the United Nations embargo on Iraq. Sanctions against Iraq had been in place for 12 years at that point, and more than 500,000 children had fallen ill and died as a result of the blockade on medicines, milk powder, drinking water purification supplies and spare parts.
  It was worth the price, then US Secretary of State Madelaine Albright replied to a question from journalist Lesley Stahl about the numbers of children who had died because of the sanctions. Stahl was interviewing Albright for the programme ‘60 Minutes’. That was in 1996, five years after the sanctions had been imposed in 1991.
  Would a journalist still ask such a question today?
  The delegation included political activists, archaeologists, doctors, nurses, anti-nuclear activists and former British, French, Italian and US soldiers who had served in previous wars against Iraq. Some had been contaminated and fallen ill from depleted uranium ammunition, which they had to load into tanks and fighter planes.#
  Western governments denied the health consequences of uranium ammunition. When I was in Iraq alone in 2001, the then chargé d’affaires at the German embassy told me that everything that was said about it was propaganda. When I pointed out that the information also came from the United Nations, he simply replied that the UN was corrupt. As I said goodbye, telling him that I was going to Basra to speak to a doctor at a children’s hospital, he said, “Perhaps you shouldn’t climb on one of the bombed-out tanks standing around there …”.
  The aim of the 2002 delegation trip was to gather information in order to raise awareness in the countries from which the activists came. Everyone was dissatisfied with the reporting. It was difficult for journalists to get to Iraq, i.e. to obtain a journalist visa. As the delegation trip had been organised with a department of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, a group of journalists was able to fly with us.
  Originally, the plane was supposed to fly directly from Brussels to Baghdad. But – due to the sanctions imposed on Iraq – the route was denied, so we flew to Damascus. There we waited several hours at the airport before we could board three buses that were to take us to Baghdad by land. From Damascus, we travelled along a desert road towards the Al Tanf/Al Walid border crossing.
  Today, this crossing in the tri-border area of Iraq, Jordan and Syria is closed. The US Army has established an illegal military base (Al Tanf) in the area and a buffer zone where new combat units of local forces, including former Islamic State fighters, are being trained.
  In the middle of the night, our Syrian escorts improvised a dinner at a rest stop. We crossed the border in the early hours of the morning. When the sun rose, we were in Iraq. Around 24 hours after leaving Brussels, we arrived in Baghdad.
  As guests of the Foreign Ministry, the delegation was accommodated at the Palestine Hotel, right on the Tigris. The comprehensive programme took us to Basra, where we drove into the desert to a military scrap yard. In Basra, there was a meeting between an Iraqi and a British veteran. Both had developed cancer because of exposure to uranium ammunition. In Baghdad, we had talks with officials such as the Iraqi negotiator with the United Nations, Amer al Saadi. We visited hospitals and spoke with the population. Because I had been to Iraq before, two colleagues and I were given special permission to travel to Mosul, the Yazidi area, and the Deir Mar Matti monastery for one day. When the delegation left, I was given permission to stay for another week. Then I was taken to Damascus, from where I travelled back home.
  The delegation also included a photographer friend of mine, with whom I made a film many years later about the consequences of the wars and depleted uranium ammunition. During the journey from Brussels to Baghdad, we talked for hours about our work, the problems and advantages of freelancing, the delegation’s programme and which points were particularly important to us.
  At one point, my colleague said that for him, as a photographer and filmmaker, it was particularly important to prepare thoroughly for every trip. To read about the country, its politics and culture, to acquire as much knowledge as possible in advance, in order to make the work in the foreign country – which would be limited – as productive as possible. He said, “You only see what you know” – and that has stayed with me in my work ever since.
  During the build-up to the war against Iraq – especially from February 2003 onwards – hundreds of international journalists came to Baghdad. I noticed big differences. Working with some of my Arab colleagues was easy. They were always willing to answer questions, explain details to me, point out events or help in other ways. It became clear to me that they would also be affected by a future war, whether you liked  or not. The US and its allies were preparing for war against an Arab country. This also affected Arab journalists.
  My German colleagues, on the other hand, were distant or even hostile – I don’t want to go into detail here – but above all, they didn’t seem interested in what was happening. They seemed to know everything, especially that “Saddam was lying,” that Arabs and Muslims were not to be trusted, and that Saddam’s regime was well prepared for war with huge bunker complexes under Saddam’s palaces. They expressed their conviction that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, as alleged by the US and other US allies. The role of Israel was not discussed; Iran was the evil force in the background. They received their instructions from their home editorial offices (ZDF, ARD, Spiegel, TAZ, SZ). Depending on the event, the stars were flown in for a few days, otherwise ‘stringers’, freelance local staff, were used. They, in turn, worked closely with their Arab colleagues.
  I learned that there is a hierarchy between television and print media, even at the United Nations – and not only in Baghdad, but later also in Beirut, Damascus and even at the United Nations in Geneva.

You only see what you know

This motto applies to all types of reporting. It is particularly important for journalistic work abroad, in a global context, in war and crisis zones. From my perspective, this should always serve the purpose of enlightenment, the imparting of knowledge and argumentation.
  You only see what you know applies to journalists and the public. And what I don’t know, I won’t see or be able to recognise. So we have to prepare ourselves for the work. We have to find out about the country we are travelling to. We have to analyse the reporting in our own country, in our own media, in order to understand and recognise the perspective of politics and the media.
  We have to be aware of the respective perspectives, but at the same time set them aside in order to arrive in the new country with an open mind and without reservations.
  We must establish contacts, especially with the population. We must listen.
  All prior knowledge is important so that we know which questions we can and must ask whom. So we know or can understand what we see when we see something.

Why journalistic
work is enlightenment

In times of crisis and war – such as we currently live – the public and the media are exposed to massive propaganda. The Ponsonby rules are well known:

1. We do not want war.
2. The other side is solely responsible for the war.
3. The enemy has the face of the devil (or is ‘ugly’).
4. The true aims of the war must be concealed under noble motives.
5. The enemy knowingly commits atrocities.
6. When we make mistakes, they are unintentional.
7. We suffer only very minor losses. The enemy’s losses are enormous.
8. Our cause is sacred.
9. Artists and intellectuals support our cause.
10. The enemy uses illegal weapons.
11. Those who question our propaganda are traitors.

The response to propaganda should not be counter-propaganda or emotional rejection, but analysis and education. For the media or even as a personal task, it is advisable to analyse and explain one example of propaganda every day, naming sources and providing clarification. This sharpens the eye.

The rules

The rules that should guide our work include inter alia the UN Charter, the Convention on Human Rights, a press code, and an awareness of where we come from in the world. Our countries of origin are the descendants of the imperial European colonial powers, which continue to make the same old plans for other parts of the world – especially Russia, China, Asia, Iran, West Asia, Africa, Latin America and South America. They want to ‘subdue the earth’; since the end of the Second World War, this has never been as clear as it is today.
  Switzerland, with its special political status of neutrality and direct democracy, is currently under particular pressure, even under fire.

Media networks

There are a large number of Internet-based and, in some cases, print media in German-speaking countries. These publish daily reports that are often similar or even identical. Most are based on international media reports that are researched by authors and published online. Some have their own authors, which is good.
  This means that the interested public often reads numerous texts in their original form or in a differently published version several times. This costs time and, in some cases, money. The question is whether this does not serve to overwhelm and confuse readers and should be avoided. In addition, authors also read the same texts and use them as a basis for their own articles. This should also be avoided. The question is, how can the different media cooperate.

Financing

It is generally known that there is too little money for the work, especially for journalists working abroad. The author suggests that this topic be dealt with in detail at a future meeting, if possible with prepared papers. Publishers of existing media are called upon to address this issue.

Category, training, networking

An informed public needs not only the media but also institutions through which developments can be analysed, discussed and reliably disseminated. International networking is recommended for this purpose. It can also be done within the media in separate sections.
  Young journalists should be trained, and coordinated seminars in the form of educational programmes are recommended for this purpose.
  Journalistic work as education should adhere to categories and clearly distinguish between opinion, analysis, reporting, etc. It would be worth discussing whether “citizen journalists” are journalists or rather activists or committed authors.

Preliminary conclusion

In the international and German-speaking world, there is a kind of open but mostly unspoken competition between alternative media. This creates ‘bubbles’ in which different sectors of the public gather and, in most cases, also isolate themselves from one another. I do not have a solution for this, but rather believe that it should be disclosed and a solution sought as to how the media can complement each other. •

(Translation Current Concerns)

* Karin Leukefeld, born in 1954, is an ethnologist, Islamic and political scientist, and historian. She has been working as a freelance correspondent since 2000. Her main areas of focus are the Near and Middle East. Her latest book is entitled “Krieg in Nahost. Geopolitik, Verwüstung und Aufbruch einer Region” (War in the Middle East: Geopolitics, Devastation and the Awakening of a Region) (Hintergrund-Verlag 2025). Karin Leukefeld had planned to give the speech printed here as an introductory lecture to the journalists’ round table in the run-up to the ‘Mut zur Ethik’ conference, but was unable to do so due to a health issue. She has provided us with the text of her speech, which we are delighted to publish.