Nicholas Kristof is among today’s great writers. I was instantly mesmerized when he transitioned from daily reporting in China to the New York Times op-ed page. Just consider this excellent piece “Cassandra Speaks” written in March 2003 on the eve of the Bush invasion of Iraq. It thoughtfully questions the wisdom of the invasion, using history as evidence. It’s commanding and persuasive — completely unlike anything he writes today.
Today, (literally), Kristof gives us articles like this one, “The Gifts of Hope.” It is a column that asks us to consider supporting extremely worthwhile organizations such as Arzu, which “employs women in Afghanistan to make carpets for export,” First Book, that gets books into the neediest neighborhoods in America, and The Somaly Mam Foundation that “fights sex slavery in Cambodia” by selling products made by victims — all in lieu of giving our aunt “another Mariah Carey CD.” It is a necessary and worthwhile message — all for it.
What I’m not for is the use of his column to promote organizations (the majority of which are Western) and individuals (the majority of whom are white kids from America). He has strayed from being a columnist that analyzes, questions and considers the advances and challenges of the development and aid field based on evidence to becoming a spokesperson advancing, as Morehouse College professor Laura Seay points out, anecdotes for a few do-gooders. That is dangerous.
A few weeks ago, AidWatchers blogger Laura Freschi asked: “How should journalists cover aid?” She wrote:
Nick Kristof has one answer: Focus on the individuals in the story, leaving the aid bureaucracies just outside the frame. Make readers care about places and people they will probably never see by bringing them stories of hope and inspiration: the American woman who leaves behind her family to help rape survivors in the Congo; the orphan boy in Zimbabwe who dreams of and gets a bicycle.
Making people care about places and people they will probably never see is valid. But is that really a challenge in today’s Facebook, Twitter, Oprah-obsessed world where everyone from Bono, Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie are crusading for the under privileged? A quick scan the Web, any newsstand or bookshelf, you’ll find no shortage of stories of hope and inspiration. What there is a shortage of is reportage that, as this Guardian piece notes, gets “behind the clichés of starving children and getting people to tell their own stories.” The article notes:
“There are several things that development journalism is not, or should not be. One is an entirely uncritical publicity vehicle for any organization (sic) or institution… ‘A reporter’s job is to keep an open mind and question what they see and hear, whether that’s the work of governments, private enterprise, NGOs or individuals.’”
In other words, anyone covering development or aid needs to treat those issues with the same critical mind and pursuit of truth as any other subject — perhaps even more so. Yes, because lives depend on it. But they depend on it because of the information those of us with the resources and capability to take action need. Foundations, philanthropists, NGOs and even aid and development agencies do not have the resources — nor are they, more importantly, in position to objectively assess the effects of their work. Development is “complex, slow, non-prescriptive and uncertain.”
“It requires the reporter to appreciate and explore the interplay of diverse realms such as health, education, environment, governance, local and national economics and culture.”
That is why, as Philip Gourevitch noted in the New Yorker back in October (and Laura Freschi on AidWatchers):
…[H]umanitarianism is an industry. So we should examine it and hold it to account as such. To treat humanitarian or human-rights organizations with automatic deference, as if they were disinterested higher authorities rather than activists and lobbyists with political and institutional interests and biases, and with uneven histories of reliability or success, is to do ourselves, and them, a disservice.
It means that Nick Kristof needs to ask, as Gourevitch notes, “the questions for which they (the NGOs et al) may have no good answers.” Sure that makes for less than idealistic, feel-good, fuzzy-warm writing. But it is the firm foundation of good columns.
