In my past life as a journalist, there was a story that had been floating around the newsroom for ages about a rookie reporter who covered his first basketball game with a story that more or less went: Jones made a 2-ponter, then Smith made a 3 pointer, then White made 2 free throws, and Black fouled Gray. Then Smith made another basket… and on and on. The story was about 10 times longer than there was space to print it and gave no sense of the game at all.
The day-to-day reporting on the war is a lot like that (probably apocryphal) sports story. Each reporter on the ground in Ukraine has a limited view of what is going on. He (or she) can report absolutely accurately about what they are seeing, but like the blind men describing an elephant, that doesn’t really tell you much.
Meanwhile, we have all sorts of experts telling us what’s going on. But they don’t know either. And the ones that do (people with access to intelligence reports) aren’t necessarily saying what they really know.
I was a copy editor in a daily newsroom when Bush Sr.’s Gulf War happened. We published daily stories about how well the war was going. I mean, by the stories we were getting off the AP wire, it was an amazing success. An astounding success. It was a clean, wholesome, nobody gets hurt, rousing Army party.
A year or more after it was over, a more factual account emerged.
Today, if a U.S. government-paid expert goes on NBC News and says the Russians are stalled and their forces are crumbling, what you can take away from that is “The U.S. wants the Ukrainians to prevail and is going to put out messages that promote that idea.” The propaganda doesn’t just come from Russia. And propaganda isn’t always all bad. What would be achieved by the next government expert saying “Ukraine is doomed!”? (Not that it is… I don’t know)
So, this is why I’m not doom scrolling through Ukraine coverage. There is very little of the coverage that actually means anything.
I know I wish I could reach out and stop this travesty. There is an inescapable feeling of helplessness. You can always donate to help refugees and get humanitarian aid into the war zone.
Someday, after the last caterpillar track has come off the last tank, historians will analyze all the records left from this war and someone like Ken Burns will sort out what actually happened in Ukraine.
I may or may not live to see it.