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Postcards from Around the World
ABC News' Terry McCarthy has been reporting on war, peace, and everything in between from all around the world for 20 years. He writes about daily life in the areas he is reporting from.
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Telling It Like It Is
May 15, 2008 10:59 AM
The whole point of being a journalist is to let the world know about stories that are important -- particularly stories where something bad is happening that could, potentially, be stopped or alleviated by outside intervention.
So it has been extremely maddening for the international press corps who, with very few exceptions, have been kept out of Burma since Cyclone Nargis hit on May 2 because the military junta does not want the world to know how bad the cyclone was nor how unable the junta itself is to respond to the disaster.
One exception was Joohee Cho, a colleague who is based in Seoul for ABC News. Joohee flew in with a crew several days after the cyclone and spent almost a week traveling around the worst-hit areas in the Irrawaddy delta. She got out last night, and some of her tales were harrowing.
Everywhere the military were on the look out for journalists, particularly any with cameras. Several times local villagers, realizing full well that Joohee and her team were journalists, warned them away from certain areas because they knew the military were on the prowl. They had to bluff their way through checkpoints set up to catch journalists -- on one occasion they had their passports confiscated overnight but managed to get them back.
The villagers were happy she was there. Many have lost family members, their houses, all their belongings, and are now completely dependent on outside aid. Joohee was both nervous about being caught but determined to log as many stories as she could of peoples' suffering. One of the stories that moved her most was a young boy whose parents tied a rubber ball around his waist that kept him afloat when the water hit. But they were both drowned, and now this boy faces an uncertain future in a country with little resources for orphans.
It is pretty much a rule of thumb that those countries that keep journalists out have some pretty bad things to hide -- along with Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe and parts of the Middle East come to mind. And sadly it is true that with no pictures on our television screens and no stories in our papers, there is less international outrage and pressure for change in some of these regimes and how they treat their own people.
We in the media don't always do our job perfectly. But when we are not allowed to do our job at all, humanity is ill-served. Which is why we who were stuck in Bangkok in neighboring Thailand were so happy when we got that first call from Joohee to say she had made it in to Rangoon, her satellite phone was working, and she was headed down to the delta to "tell it like it is."
May 15, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (2)
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It was the same with former Iron Curtain during the Cold War. They don't want the media to tell the truth to the rest of the world, so they control the media to tell the world what they want to tell the world. Burma is no different than the former Soviet Union. Tyrant countries will always be the same regardless.
Posted by: GWP, Franklin Boro, NJ | May 15, 2008 11:54:07 AM
Joohee,
I watched your report a few nights ago where you described a small boy who was saved by his parents by attaching a flotation device to him. He survived but not his parents. Do you have any additional information on the condition and future for him? You said there are no orphanages so what is he to do? Is this boy left alone on a street?
Joe
Posted by: Joe | May 16, 2008 8:04:39 AM
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