Marie Colvin, witness
The war correspondent Marie Colvin, who was killed by a Syrian mortar attack last month in Homs, was laid to rest yesterday after a funeral mass at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in her hometown of Oyster Bay, Long Island.
The stories in the Daily News and The Times tell of her legacy and impact on so many lives. Her best testimony was her own life.
As she said at a 2010 service for the war wounded in London:
“The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen. We do have that faith because we believe we do make a difference.”
Being there was Colvin’s real genius, it seems to me. Great writing is what connects. Consider her last blog post before she was killed:
“I think the reports of my survival may be exaggerated. In Baba Amr. Sickening, cannot understand how the world can stand by and I should be hardened by now. Watched a baby die today. Shrapnel, doctors could do nothing. His little tummy just heaved and heaved until he stopped. Feeling helpless. As well as cold! Will keep trying to get out the information.”
That’s a final passage any writer should be proud of.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.
It would be a terrific heritage if we had more journalism that fends off pressure and reports what really happens on the ground.
RIP is right!
She must have been an extraordinary woman — as her colleague, Anthony Shaddid of the NYT seems to have been an extraordinary man.
Bob Nunz’s comment made me think about the fact that when an individual reporter dies as a result of working in a dangerous area, people generally show appreciation for their efforts (and certainly Colvin deserves a good deal of appreciation).
Yet large swaths of the public also hold “the media,” collectively, in contempt for various perceived biases and ignorance, even though good people like Colvin feed it.
Not sure that’s a discrepancy–perhaps people distinguish between the work of the reporter and the factors, sometimes not all that admirable, that affect gatekeeping–but the accolades for Colvin have thrown that “admire the reporter, revile the media” attitude into high relief.
Jean, I think that’s true, and not necessarily exclusive to perceptions of the media, though the gap between views of “The Media” as an entity and media individuals is perhaps wider than many other areas.
Andrew Sullivan linked to discussion of a study on how we perceive groups v. individuals in regard to the calls for bombing Iran:
I think that can go for bloggers, bishops, the whole passel of oft-reviled cohorts.
I hardly revile the media, but i do revile Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Fox proaganda, and many TV shows that mnust show”balance” with all kinds of talking heads spewing talking ideology points.
BTW last Friday was 8 years since NPR canned Bob Edwards -wonder if they could tell the real story now?
Bob N. ==
By the way, Bill Moyers is back on PBS. Different times in different areas. See:
http://billmoyers.com/http://billmoyers.com/
David G., thanks. I think it was Elie Wiesel who made a similar point, that trying to convey the suffering and death of 6 million people is too abstract–it’s why individual stories make more of an impression. I think perhaps that’s why witnesses like Colvin are so important. Homz residences being hit by mortar shells, what an outrage, time for supper, do you want to run out for ice cream? But the image of that single baby’s belly going up and down … my God.
That this virtual holocaust has been going on for almost a year now and we’ve been seeing it on cnn every night and still no one stops it -is truly beyond comprehension.It is so bizarre to hear pundits and politicians saying exactly what Assad himself is saying;He keeps upping the ante about terrorists being behind this uprising. First it’s the demonized muslim brotherhoiod,now it’s alquada itself.As if any of that were relevant to the fact that men women and children are being massacred en masse for oppossing a 30yr dictatorship.If hamas and alquada are supporting the uprising against this regime-that should tell us that our narrative about hamas,muslim brotherhood and alquada needs to be reassesd -rather then that we should continue to allow these crimes agasinst humanity to continue.What power this Assad has when suppossedly decent people are using his narrative to rationalize not stopping a year long massacre of men women and children.Nothing that is being said makes any sense morally.Even tactically-as we are contemplating going against iran and as we have labeled syria part of the axis of evil and that iran backs the regime-you would think when people themselves are rising up against an iranian backed evil regime-we would be pleased at an opportunity to topple this regime .Instead everyone is coming out with reasons to not act. The lone voice is Mc cain and now Graham-but they are being vilified for having a conscience.Anderson Cooper has been reporting on this every night and finally he is losing his “objectivity” and realizing that what the politicians and policy makers are saying is absurd in the face what we’re actually seeing.The banality of evil-being able to watch day in and day out images of horrific police state crackdown and coming up with reasons that Assad himself uses to not intervene. Very bizarre-truely demonic.