In September, I was on a routine trip to The Washington
Post, where I've been working with teams of editors on leadership and
management ideas, ideals and skills. As
I walked through the newsroom, I spotted Rajiv Chandrasekaran in the small, glass-fronted office from which he directs the
Post's Continuous News Desk.
It was the day before the release of his book,
Imperial Life in the Emerald City -- an account of life in and around Iraq's
Green Zone during the earliest days of the American occupation.
Chandrasekaran was the Post's Baghdad bureau
chief during that time. From his first-hand
observations and subsequent reporting, his book paints a gripping story of the
flawed assumptions, decisions and management of the occupation. The Post had
just published a powerful Page One story adapted from several chapters of the
book. The headline: "Ties to GOP
Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq."
I told him how much I learned from that story alone. I appreciated the documentation and detail he
brought to this window into a troubled, sometimes appalling, place and
time. I told him I'd be buying his book.
|
www.rajivc.com
Rajiv Chandrasekaran |
His response surprised me.
I thought I'd hear some "how I got the story" backstory. Instead, he directed me to the
acknowledgements section in the back of the book, where he praises the
leadership and culture of the
Post. He
believes they nourished the work of his bureau in Iraq and the book that grew
from his experience.
Could we talk about this publicly for the benefit of others,
I asked him? Would he do a Q&A to
give specifics on his thesis? Sure, he
said, asking only that I wait a little bit as he met the list of obligations –-
talks, interviews, media appearances --
that accompany a book release.
I read the book. And when I learned that Imperial Life in the Emerald City was
named a National Book Award finalist, I wasn't surprised. It is excellent. I
also decided the time was right to check in with him. I e-mailed my congratulations along with my
questions:
JILL GEISLER: You encouraged me to look at
your book's acknowledgements. I see that
you applaud leadership from the very top of the Post –- plus other editors and
a "climate within the newspaper." Could
you connect the dots that link their leadership to your authorship?
RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN: If not for the leadership of the Post, my
book wouldn't even be an unrealized dream. Where to begin? Phil Bennett, then
the assistant managing editor for foreign news, deployed enough people to Iraq
to allow some of his correspondents the freedom to pursue important themes that
other journalists were ignoring at the time. In the early months of the
occupation, my colleague Anthony Shadid spent weeks focusing on the growing
clout of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, and
I spent more time than perhaps any other American reporter covering the inner
workings of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Phil did so with the blessing
of Executive Editor Len Downie and former Managing Editor Steve Coll. It's also
worth noting that Anthony's work won him the 2004 Pulitzer for International
Reporting. It was Phil who urged me in the summer of 2003 to focus on the CPA,
reminding me that the best reporting from Vietnam was the reporting on the
American experience there. It was advice I took to heart.
Because of
the challenges in reporting in a war zone, Anthony or I often filed late,
sometimes sending lengthy pieces for the Sunday paper on Saturday morning,
Washington time. Phil and his then-deputy, David Hoffman, never got mad at us,
nor did they relegate the task of editing important front-page enterprise to
others. They routinely came into the office over the weekends to move our
stories.
Fast
forward to the summer of 2004. With the handover of sovereignty a month away,
Phil paid a visit to Baghdad. Over the course of a two-hour discussion in our
bureau, he and I sketched out the contours of a three-part series that would
examine the troubled occupation. I crashed it, reporting and writing more than
10,000 words in three weeks. Phil whipped it into shape and got it into the
paper 10 days before the handover. The series, which resulted in hundreds of
reader messages, helped draw attention to the CPA's failings. It also helped me
to realize that there was an important book to be written about the CPA.
When we talk about leadership in
journalism, people always cite values like integrity, courage, fairness and
commitment to excellence. But I ask them
to tell me what that looks like in action. You note that Post Chairman Don Graham sought
you out after the liberation of Baghdad to tell you "the paper would do
whatever is necessary to ensure my safety and that of my colleagues. And it did."
Can you share some other examples of leadership values in action -– as
they relate to the Post's Baghdad bureau and your book?
Whenever I needed anything, from advice on a story to the
services of a high-priced private security consultant, Post editors were always
available. They answered messages before going to bed and as soon as they
awoke. They made it clear that I could call them in the middle of the night.
But it was
more than just accessibility. They never once spiked a story I wrote; they
wanted the unvarnished truth from the war zone, not a tidy account that
comported with the White House's depiction of the situation there. And they
devoted the resources necessary to dominate the story. It wasn't just a matter
of buying $90,000 armored cars or sending enough reporters. If a story deserved
it, they'd open up two pages in the A section so we could lay bare another
aspect of the complexities of America's entanglement in Iraq.
Let me ask about your own approach to leadership. Your book describes the Green Zone as a place
where Iraqi laws and customs didn't apply, where a "little America" was
created, and where, on page 25 you write: "...except for the odd, adventurous CPA staffer, most Americans didn't bother seeking
out their Iraqi neighbors." I'm aware
that you, as Baghdad bureau chief, took a different approach. You traveled in
and out of the Green Zone. You visited Iraqis in their homes. You even hired an
Iraqi as chief of security for the Post staff.
What guided that decision?
Almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad lived outside the Green
Zone. For us, the choice was how much time to spend inside the Green Zone. I
tried to go in as often as possible because I felt the story on the inside was
as important as that on the outside.
As for
hiring Iraqis, it was a no-brainer. Iraqis know their country better than we
do. I figured an Iraqi security chief -- even if he didn't have the same sort
of training some of the ex-military private security guards do -- would bring
many valuable skills to the job. He would have a better handle on the sorts of places
that were, and were not, safe to visit, and he would be better able to manage
our other Iraqi guards.
As powerful books like yours and Bob Woodward’s State of Denial
are published, you’ve heard questions about timing. Couldn’t this information
have come out earlier, on the pages of the daily paper? Is there a temptation to hold information for
a book, rather than report it out immediately? How did you and the newsroom
leadership approach the journalistic obligation to reveal newsworthy
information in a timely fashion - even as you were conducting two years of
reporting for the book?
This wasn't a case of holding back the juicy details because it would
make for a better book. Had I known about the CPA's hiring practices and other
similar details while I was the Post's bureau chief in Baghdad, I certainly
would have written about them. But it wasn't something I learned about until I
returned home in October 2004 and began working on the book. (I took a leave of
absence from the Post last year to work on it.) By then, these
details seemed far less newsworthy as discrete factoids. Their power comes from
their placement in a broader, book-length narrative.
We should also keep in mind that the CPA was
run much like the Bush White House. Reporters weren't allowed to troll the
halls without an escort from the Strategic Communications Office. And even if
you could get a CPA staffer alone, it was tough to determine what was really
going on. Many of them were told, in no uncertain terms, that they were not
speak to reporters without a minder present. It wasn't until many of those CPA
staffers returned home to the United States that I was able to get them to open
up to me.
Journalists at the Post are a prolific group of authors. Do you credit that to their entrepreneurship,
to the Post culture, or to both? If
culture is involved, what specifically takes place to assist the journalists who
wish to publish books?
To both. Len and Phil are willing to give reporters time to
pursue meritorious book projects. If they weren't so supportive of book
writing, there would be far fewer books written by Post staffers.
