Old enemies, new friends

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Opinion: Why we need foreign reporting.

By Mort Rosenblum — Special to GlobalPost

Published: May 13, 2009 16:20 ET
Updated: May 13, 2009 16:20 ET

Page 2 of 2

The past always matters. History offers clues when new trouble is imminent. Still, lessons drawn only from history are an imperfect guide.

The present matters more. A close watch allows sparks to be snuffed out before they flame. Tyrants and fools can be stopped while there is still time.

A popular new American president will soon visit Normandy, where Ronald Reagan evoked these themes in stirring terms a generation ago.

Up there, among those rows of white crosses and stars of David, the vicissitudes of human folly are dead clear. Given the state of today’s world, we’d better take notice.

True enough, war is the failure of diplomacy. Most other bad news is equally preventable if it is foreseen, and understood, before it makes headlines.

As we saw in World War II, and repeatedly since, statesmen and generals bear watching. This takes seasoned correspondents with no flag to wave or brand to promote.

Our besieged news organizations, now so badly in need of saving, have always been uneven, shot through with flaws. That is why we need multiple competitive sources, now more than ever.

As America worked itself into pre-invasion furor early in 2003, I watched media stars hustle into Normandy for an obvious cheap shot: Cowardly France was ungrateful.

But the old nemesis had since joined France in the European Union. Both nations have learned about war the hard way and know it can only be a last, desperate resort.

In the six years since, public apathy and corporate greed have slashed America’s foreign correspondent corps to a pathetic fraction of what we desperately need.

If we cannot protect and reinforce what is left of nuanced reporting by skilled practitioners, we are bound to get things horribly wrong.

World War II, like every human calamity before and since, made this painfully plain: We cannot even remotely understand a world that confounds generality without solid knowledge of how diverse societies see it and what causes their points to tip.