"Journalists live for details."

So says Gloria Galloway, reporting from KAF yesterday:

A couple of weeks ago, two Afghan children were killed by Canadian soldiers. And the Canadian reporters here wrote about it, describing in some detail how the children died.

...

I was not here in Afghanistan when the children were killed so I was not one of those whose byline appeared on those reports. But I have had to explain, on a couple of different occasions, that, had I been embedded at the time, I would likely have written about what transpired in exactly the same way.

Journalists live for details. They are our stock in trade. And, as long as we know them to be fact, we throw them into our work without giving a lot of thought about who might be reading on the other end – at least we try to. Sometimes we agonize about what the fallout will be. But we do our best to get over it.

The people who read our work deserve as fully formed a picture as our words can paint.

Which does, as on this occasion, cause pain to some of the people we write about.

The defence I have offered, and I am not sure that it has been entirely accepted, is that we report in this way because theses stories are news.

There are a couple of points she makes that are worth examining.

First, the idea that journalists try not to take into account the repercussions of their stories and how those stories are told - they just impartially recount the facts as they know them. This is hogwash.

Second, that journalists are all about the details. Hogwash again. Which ties into the first point.

The truth of the matter is that journalists pick which details are relevant to the story. They may try to be balanced with those choices. They may try to be impartial and objective with those choices. But they make them nonetheless.

Galloway talks about the escalation of force incident in which two children were killed in a car that ignored warnings and approached a Canadian convoy too closely. She mentions that the way the children died was reported in graphic detail - because "journalists live for details."

If journalists really lived for details, why did I have to write this post back in November of last year about the details the Globe and Mail didn't bother to give their readers about escalation of force issues? About signage and radio coverage and Rules of Engagement? Why did it fall to a lowly blogger to put those details into the public sphere? To put the story into context?

Journalistic objectivity is a fairy tale told to children and developmentally challenged adults. It's a lovely ideal, but it doesn't exist. Whether consciously or unconsciously, journalists put their own imprint on the stories they report.

Look at this story about another suicide bombing in Kandahar half a year ago, as reported by CTV News:

Afghanistan has suffered what is being called the deadliest terror attack in its history.

A suicide bomber attacked an outdoor dogfighting competition on the outskirts of Kandahar on Sunday, leaving 80 people dead and another 75 wounded, according to Afghan government sources.

Some witnesses say more than 100 people were killed.

People stood in shock and body parts and articles of clothing were scattered across the field where the competition had been taking place.

The main target is believed to have been Abdul Hakim Jan, a local militia leader. Five of his officers were reportedly killed when the bomb detonated near three police vehicles.

Canada's 2,500 soldiers are responsible for security in Kandahar Province, and the attack shatters a period of relative peace established last fall. [Babbler's bold]

Let's look at the details. Security in Kandahar province is a shared responsibility. The Afghan government has some of it, which is why ANP and ANA units are intimately involved in nearly all operations in the province. ISAF has some of it too, and specifically Regional Command South, which includes the province in its area of responsibility. The Canadians operate in Kandahar alongside Americans, British, Dutch, and a host of other nations in the alliance.

But the story doesn't mention those details. What is says is that "Canada's 2,500 soldiers are responsible for security in Kandahar province." Which, as you can see, isn't entirely accurate.

Why did the CTV writer put that simplistic and inaccurate line into the story? Well, probably because he or she was looking to impart to the reader the idea that Canada bears some of the responsibility for security, that this incident showed that we're not doing the job perfectly, and to help the reader put the bombing into some sort of Canadianized, semi-personal context.

These decisions by reporters and editors get made every day, and to pretend they don't is either foolish or dishonest. A human being cannot be a simple, inanimate pipeline of information from event to consumer - there is a filtering process in any communication that cannot be avoided.

So to Gloria Galloway, I say this: stop hiding behind the myth of journalistic objectivity, and start taking responsibility for the choices you make as a journalist - for what you choose to report, for what you choose not to, and for how you go about it. The soldiers will respect you a lot more when you take accountability for your choices.

Update: If journalists really, really lived for details, many bloggers would have a much tougher time finding stuff to blog about.

When it comes to details, I'll take a guy like Bob Tarantino over most journalists any day of the week.

Step up to the barrel - these fish won't shoot themselves. Oh, wait...