Bobby Ghosh: A "My Life As..." Gem
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“The last time I addressed a group of journalism students, four of them showed up,” said Bobby Ghosh, jokingly, while staring out at an audience of well over four students. Bobby Ghosh visited the SAC Auditorium on Oct. 25 to discuss his life experiences as a wartime journalist in Baghdad, and his recent position as the new world editor for Time magazine. He spoke about the human condition, the war in Iraq, and what it is really like to be a wartime journalist. Compared to other “My Life As…” events, I think the journalism department did a good job in getting a modest, eloquent speaker to hold the audience for…gasp! Less then two hours! Sorry Soledad, but hearing about every single ounce of your life isn’t interesting. No, Ghosh was different. He wore a black suit with a large belly. Very clean-shaven, very brown. And his presentation, god bless him, was short—he chose to show a short video titled Life in the Red Zone, followed by a question-and-answer session. The video displayed various images of Iraqi citizens and war scenes. It seemed that he was holding the attention of the JRN 101 kids, who were generally present just for extra credit, but it’s safe to say everyone walked away with much more than extra credit that night. The way he spoke, you got a rush. Cheeks flushed, I hurriedly jotted down every single smoothly-accented word in my moleskine. The quotes were electric, partly due to the explosive content he was talking about. One student asked how Ghosh felt about Saddam’s hanging and he replied, commenting on the new leadership, “These are the most corrupt, inept, sectarian people I have encountered anywhere.” He spoke of the Iraqi press and told an anecdote about a girl who graduated first of her class in journalism school. He asked her why she was first, and she replied it was because she could quote all of Saddam’s twenty or so speeches from memory. He said that not too long ago, the meaning of good journalism in Iraq was how well you could remember the leader’s words. But now, things are changing. He discussed, with light in his eyes, the “five or six terrific newspapers who do not have great resources.” He seemed hopeful about the future—and actually, he seemed like a hopeful, optimistic guy in general. He told poignant scenes about the world over there, calling this the greatest story of our time, denouncing apathy. “The Iraqi war will come to your backyard,” he said ominously. One scene he told, he was involved in a car bombing in Najaf, in Aug. 2003 that killed over 100 people. “I was there when it happened. My first reaction was I went deaf for a spell,” he said. He recalled being showered by almonds and walnuts by a nearby stand. “It took a few moments before the surreal shower of nuts came down upon us. And then there was blood. At that point you make a choice—are you going to be a journalist or are you going to be a human being?” He decided not to be a journalist that day. Following that initial shock was another scene that shook him, while rummaging through the debris from the attack. “I came upon a hand—a very very small hand. I realized it was a child.” After doubling their efforts as a team to lift the hand from the mess, he said, “The child was a boy, five or six years old, he was dead. I remember I had to hold him in my hands. At that point, journalism was the farthest thing from my mind.” In that moment, I was there. I was helping lift that boy’s hand, and I was there while they discovered he was dead, with walnuts and almonds littered across the ground and blood everywhere. I was there, and everyone else in the auditorium was probably there too. For more journalistic news coverage by our awesome reporter Mike Kelly, click this: |
