Reporters Notebook: Killing time in Kuwait

NAMELESS AIRBASE, KUWAIT - KLM flight 459 from Amsterdam descends into a thick brown haze as we approach Kuwait City International Airport (KCIA in military parlance). We are arriving in Kuwait in a sand storm, and as we get closer to the ground it gets darker and darker.

We are supposed to meet Captain Richardson and Sergeant Guffey from the US 3rd Army Public Affairs Office's Kuwait Media Relations Team at the Starbucks outside baggage claim. When we arrive at Starbucks we can't find them and I spend 15 minutes walking around the arrivals area looking for them. There are quite a few obvious Americans waiting to meet arriving military personal and civilian contractors in-route to Iraq, but none of them know the soldiers I'm looking for.

After an hour I strike up a conversation with an American in civilian clothes who has been sitting in Starbucks holding up a sign that says "GIRAFFE" in block letters since before we arrived. He doesn't know CPT Richardson or SGT Guffey, but he's heard that the military has closed the roads because of the sand storm. He lets me use his cell phone to call SGT Guffey. It turns out that our ride is on the way, despite the driving conditions and they should be here shortly.

We have an extra passenger on the van ride out into the desert. SSG "Andy" Dillon, from Fayettville North Carolina, is visiting in Kuwait for a few days from her regular duty assignment running the golf course at the Baghdad International Airport (known here as BIAP). With time to kill waiting for a flight "home" to Baghdad she decided it would be "fun" to take a three hour van ride through a sandstorm to get a real cup of Starbucks coffee.

When we finally arrive at the base CPT Richardson briefs us on what we'll be going through over the next few days as we make our way north to Baghdad, and then on to Balad, our final destination where well be joining the Minnesota National Guard unit we are here to cover. We turn in our passports to get stamped out of the country by Kuwaiti customs (a 24 hour process that will delay our hoped for departure time by about a day). And we get our names on the endless list for a flight to BIAP.

At 8:00pm we get assigned a bunk for the night, and CPT Richardson turns us loose for the evening to try to get some sleep. But the time zone here is 9 hours ahead of Minnesota and our bodies are convinced that it's 11:00am, and so I take John on a walking tour of our temporary home in the desert (I was here several times last year, and so I know my way around).

We walk down dark gravel "streets" through a sea of tents toward a bright oasis of light ahead. The "food court" has a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut, and a KFC. The street lights provide an other worldly light in the remnants of the day's sand storm, and the free standing McDonalds golden arches sign with arabic script is incongruous out here standing above the tents and trailers that make up this temporary city in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert.

There are only a few people waiting outside the walk up windows at McDonalds, which is really a couple of temporary steel buildings with picnic tables spread outside on the sand. The scene reminds me of the Edward Hopper painting of a few lonely people sitting in a late night dinner (http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/object?id=111628). It's a different world, but the color pallet and the emotion are the same.

At 3:00am John can't sleep, and he reports that there almost a hundred people in line at McDonalds. War is a 24 hour a day business, and groups of soldiers pass through this little city in the desert at all hours of the day and night.

Note: Out of deference to political and security sensitivities with our hosts the Kuwaiti government we are not authorized to report on details of where we are in Kuwait or details of the American military presence here.

What's your defining story?

I heard a funny story here in Kuwait yesterday about a soldier hitting a camel a couple months ago while driving the same van that came to pick us up at the airport yesterday, and they had pictures to prove it.

Part of the followup to the story was the idea that everybody has one defining story that their friends tell about them (especially when they want to embarrass them). And so the idea was that this story had replaced the drivers old story as "the" defining story, and now she was actually happy about it because she hated the old story...

Which got me to wondering what my defining story is? What's yours? Care to comment?

WTIP radio call-in schedule

Here is the tentative schedule for radio call-ins to WTIP radio that I will be doing from Iraq over the next few weeks:

9:45am on the following days:

Thursday, Jan. 10

Monday, Jan. 14

Wednesday, Jan 16

Notes:

1. If you are not in the WTIP listening area you can listen online at http://wtip.org

2. This schedule is TENTATIVE pending my availability. If it turns out that I'm going to be out on a mission at any of those times we'll attempt to reschedule.

Safe arrival in Kuwait

NAMELESS AIRBASE, KUWAIT - We have safely arrived in Kuwait. Out of deference to political and security sensitivities with out hosts the Kuwaiti government we are not authorized to report on very many details of where we are or what else goes on here. But I can tell you that we are stuck here waiting for 24 hours for our passports to be processed so that we can leave Kuwait, and continue on our way to Iraq.

The faces have changed as the soldiers I met here in Kuwait last year have all returned home and been replaced by fresh faces, but everything else about Kuwait and the process of in-processing and traveling on to Iraq is pretty much the same... You can read this post from last year to get a flavor for what it is like.

Reporter's Notebook: What qualifies a story as "news" (a little insight into how the media really works)

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (In transit to Iraq) - As an independent journalist, and newcomer to the news media one of the many interesting things I've been learning over the past year is how it all actually works. Just like any other industry it's all a bit messier and more unsophisticated on the inside than you might imagine as an outsider looking at the polished public product (you don't want to see the sausage being made).

Case in point the mini blizzard of media coverage of John Camp and myself on Friday by half a dozen media organizations. Here is a little chronology and behind the scenes insight into what really happened.

On Thursday a reporter from the St Paul Pioneer press interviewed John about our trip. At the time the assumption was that the story would run sometime next week after we had actually arrived in Iraq. Also on Thursday a reporter at MinnPost gave John and I a set of written questions to respond to before we left for Iraq intended as material for a story that would run on Monday to introduce our Iraq coverage.

Apparently Thursday was a slow news day and the Pioneer Press decided to run the story early (http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_7874101?nclick_check=1 appeared on the Pioneer Press website at 6:51pm on the 3rd, and ran in the morning paper on the 4th). By 9:00am I'd gotten several emails and calls from people, "Did you see the Pioneer Press?"

This is the point where the sausage factory comes into action. Was the fact that John Camp and I were leaving for Iraq really news worthy enough for half the mainstream media outlets in the Twin Cities to all cover it on the same day in advance of us actually doing anything? Probably not, but as soon as one of them ran it everybody else started jumping on board... not wanting to be late to the party.

At 10:00am WCCO posted the AP syndicated Pioneer Press story on their website: http://wcco.com/minnesotawire/22.0.html?type=local&state=MN&category=n&filename=MN--People-JohnSandfo.xml

At 10:30am somebody from KSTP called and asked I could stop by for a quick on camera interview for a story that they had just decided to run on the 6:00pm news in response to the Pioneer Press story.

At 10:56am KSTP posted the AP story on their site with some updated photos: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S302832.shtml

At 12:40pm Editor & Publisher magazine posted the AP story on their website: http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003691907

At 2:55pm MinnPost.Com published the story that it had been intending to run on Monday: http://www.minnpost.com/iraq/2008/01/04/497/john_camp_explains_why_hes_going_to_iraq_for_minnpost

At 4:15pm WCCO radio called and asked if I could do a phone interview, and if I could ask John to call them also (which I did). I don't have confirmation as to when or if these interviews actually ran. I somebody reading this heard them I would be curious to hear about it.

At 4:30pm the Minnesota National Guard website posted the AP story on their website: http://www.minnesotanationalguard.org/press_room/e-zine/articles/index.php?item=1220

At 6:00pm KSTP ran a 70 second story on the evening news including video footage that I shot last year in Iraq, and a sound bite from my interview earlier in the day (watch the video here: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S302832.shtml)

At 7:00pm somebody from the Star Tribune left John a voice mail asking to do an interview. He was busy getting ready to leave, and didn't return their call.

There's nothing terrible about any of this, but it does give some insight into how much of our daily news diet at most news organizations is directly influenced by the stories that other news organizations are running vs. being original reporting.

UPDATE: 6.Jan.08

NAMELESS AIRBASE KUWAIT - The Sunday edition of Stars & Stripes, the military newspaper, ran the AP story, and so everybody we talk to here in Kuwait already seems to know who we are...

Heading back to Iraq tomorrow

I am returning to Iraq on January 5th, 2008 for a two week photojournalism project.

About the trip
I will be spending two weeks in Balad, Iraq as an embedded photojournalist with 2/147 Assault Helicopter Battalion (AHB) of the Minnesota National Guard.

This year I have a Pulitzer Prize winning writer joining me on the trip. John Camp is a former US Army journalist, former St Paul Pioneer Press reporter, and best selling novelist (writing as John Sandford).

We are looking forward to flying on combat missions in Blackhawk helicopters, and telling the stories of the Minnesotans flying them.

Media Outlets
John and I are sponsored by MinnPost.Com, a non-profit news organization focused on Minnesota news. Stories and photography from our trip will be appearing daily on the MinnPost.Com website from Jan 7-18.

I will also be providing video to KSTP Channel 5, the Minneapolis ABC affiliate. I expect that my reporting will be appearing on several weeknights between January 9-16. Reports may appear on the 5pm and/or 10pm news. You can check my personal Iraq website for updates on the broadcast schedule.

I am also expecting to do several live radio call-in spots on WTIP the Northshore public radio station based in Grand Marais, Minnesota. If you are outside the WTIP listening area you can still listen to on the WTIP website. Again, check my personal Iraq website for broadcast schedule.

Press Coverage
The St Paul Pioneer Press ran a short piece about our trip this morning: http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_7874101

I'm heading back to Iraq in January '08

It's official I just bought the plane tickets today, and I'll be heading back to Iraq for a 2 week embed in January. Stay tuned for more details...