Understand that Cooke did the legwork and writing for this book in 1941 and 1942 although the manuscript was not published until 2006. (The Acknowledgments and Forward of the book are interesting reading).The topic is foreign correspondents. Cooke compares asking a person about how the war is affecting him or her, or the community to "...asking a man if he thinks he is neurotic and if he thinks he's adjusted." Cooke asserts that the questions foreign correspondents ask are seen as challenges to the interviewee. And answers are therefore unconsciously designed to resolve the psychological dilemma into which the has placed him. Cooke calls the "reams of conscientious 'reporting' of civilian attitudes by reporters who are quite sincerely eager to know," a " brave waste of curiosity."
I was intrigued by these reflections on the task Cooke had laid before himself coming so early in his journey across the States. I was roughly 1/8 of the way into the book! Did he believe his task futile? Will he change the way he talks with the people he encounters later in the book? I'll need to read more to find out!
Permit me one more passage to quote here.
"But when you ask a human being how he feels about ...whether his town is prepared for air raids, or whether he thinks we'll win, or whether his neighbors know what the war is all about, you are putting forth nothing but leading questions, enclitic invitations to answer Yes, sir, or No, sir. It is for this sad reason that most roving reporters, and indeed all foreign correspondents whenever they desert statistics for judgments of opinion and 'morale', become models of self-deception."
I don't think the times have changed much in this regard. It reminds me strongly of the stench of media outlets that conduct polls and present the results as news.
No comments:
Post a Comment