Critic or Caveman?

IN Media Practice | 17/04/2002
Critic or Caveman

Critic or Caveman?

SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association) posts articles on the stir created by Tunku Vardarajan’s criticism of CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Among other things, he called her a "fearless she-man". Vardarajan’s article may have delighted some in South Asia who have winced at the boo-boos Amanpour breezily makes when she is reporting from here. But it incensed some of her colleagues in the international media.

Citizen Of The World

Wall Street Journal
November 12, 2001

By Tunku Varadarajan

Potshots at women rebound on fearless he-man

Toronto Globe & Mail
November 16, 2001

By John Doyle

 

It took a war to confirm an old prejudice. Until she showed up in Pakistan to man the front line at the Islamabad Marriott, I¿d forgotten how second-rate Christiane Amanpour could be. Tuned in to CNN the other day, I winced as the network¿s chief international correspondent stood inside the 17th-century Badshahi Mosque in Lahore--devoid of people for no reason other than that it was not the time for prayer--and said: "The mosque is deserted. That is because most Pakistanis are moderate." Then she proceeded to interview a number of ladies who lunch.
War is a time for instant expertise from the likes of Ms. Amanpour, who parachute into benighted places, kitted out in flak-jackets and other kinds of tough-girl raiment, and bring the whole sordid world of The Other into our living rooms. The process is understandable: After all, we can¿t all be experts on every subject, and there will always be conflagrations in places of which we¿ve scarcely heard. But with the prevailing sense that our civilization is in genuine peril, we¿ve hungered for thoughtful interpretations of The Other, as well as for good, precise information. But viewers didn¿t seem to get that from Ms. Amanpour, whose faint foreign accent is misinterpreted as erudition by Americans. Equally puzzlingly, her alluring dark looks are thought to convey an anti-Barbie seriousness of mind.
Ms. Amanpour is the diva of parachute journalism: In lieu of informing us better, she sells us a lifestyle. The genre owes more to dramatic or histrionic traditions than to old-fashioned news-gathering, and is ultimately about staging, not investigation. In this, she is perfectly suited to her role: The apotheosis of the middle-brow, she built her reputation, at least in her early days, on a foundation of pluck and self-belief, the latter of which she has in dazzling abundance. She plays herself, and looks dashing in danger zones, a fearless she-man who uses all things around her--people, buildings, ancient enmities, modern weaponry--as props.
As if by design, and perhaps as an act of mercy to the viewers, MSNBC has deployed a woman for this war who is the perfect anti-Amanpour. I write of Ashleigh Banfield, who anchored MSNBC¿s news program, "A Region in Conflict," at 9 p.m.

Several journalists have now been killed while reporting from Afghanistan. The other day, a woman camera operator for CNN was attacked and beaten on the border with Pakistan. The situation there is chaotic and dangerous for journalists. This hasn¿t stopped some instances of extraordinary, vindictive coverage of how the war is being reported on TV.

On Monday, a man who holds the august title "deputy editorial features editor" of The Wall Street Journal, a certain Tunku Varadarajan, weighed into the coverage-of-war-coverage issue with a scathing attack on several women TV reporters. He used the words "diva" and "shallow" and criticized the hair and clothing of several women reporters working from Pakistan or Afghanistan.

This has caused a storm of fury in some quarters, and rightly so. After attacking CNN¿s Christiane Amanpour for "parachute journalism," wearing a flak jacket and having a foreign accent, and then calling her a "fearless she-man," The Wall Street Journal he-man moved on to a reporter for MSNBC and discussed her hair and glasses.

He liked her for being a "fine-boned lady" and "an anti-Amanpour."

Then came the capper -- praise for Canada¿s own Lyse Doucet (the Journal he-man gets to see her on BBC World) and, in particular, her ability to be "clear-headed, clever and unostentatious." She is also "self-effacing."

This sort of sexist, ranting commentary is unnerving, and women journalists across the print and broadcast media are furious.

A discussion of the issue has been going on at the Web Site of the Poynter Institute, an American school of journalism that monitors the American media. One newspaper editor, a woman, contributed to the discussion by analyzing Varadarajan¿s remarks like this: "clear-headed" equals "she¿s not a hysterical woman," and "self-effacing" and "deeply unostentatious" equal "she knows her place."