[Ed. note: This is the second, and last, installment of my interview with Christopher Allbritton, reporter, editor and publisher of Back to Iraq 3.0. He left for Iraq on May 12.]

War stance

Christopher Allbritton shies away from support of the current war in Iraq, and mentions that fact often through his dispatches. He aims for the ideal of transparency, rather than objectivity.

Creeping bias, he said, is inevitable.

“I think that it’s a fallacy to expect people to believe that doesn’t happen,” he said of bias bleeding into reporters’ prose. “So, be open about it, let them know. Let them make the decision whether to trust you or not based on that bias.”

Thorough, fair reporting earns respect from readers, he believes.

“I’m credible not because of my background or who I am. I’m credible because my readers have decided I’m credible.”

He has seen support come from a spectrum of viewpoints, despite his stated stance against the war. He says he even got a commendation letter from Lucianne [Ed. note: corrected to 'Lucianne' from 'Lucian' 5/19/04] Goldberg, whose name history inextricably links to the Bill Clinton impeachment, after last year’s Iraq trip.

“I think of objectivity as a transparency of method,” he added. He likens journalism to the meme of politics being like sausage: It might prove tedious to see how it’s made, but making the process available benefits all.

He suggests that journalists, in their Web forays, take advantage of the medium and post transcripts and audio recordings of interviews. Such strategies for transparency, he says, boost credibility.

Perils of self-publishing

Self-publishing is a line drawn from one point. Allbritton tries to overcome the lack of editors in his model of journalism through extreme care.

His mother, an avid reader and editor, and his spell-checker catch the minor errors, he says.

“Other than that, I just have to be really careful,” he said. “And I sometimes have to slow down a little bit.”

“I mean, I no longer try to be first. I know that, when I try to be first, I get into a rush, I make mistakes or I write weirdly structured sentences or, you know, get names misspelled. … And I try to bring more depth to it to make up for the fact that I’m not breaking it.”

Web reporting, then, is an evolving creature. Reporters get as close as they can to “truth,” and post their material. Readers help them vet it.

“You hope that people look at the Web site, and will forgive you your minor sins for your greater virtue,” Allbritton said.

Balance

Independent reporting also pressures journalists more when balancing sources.

For example, Allbritton says that Iraqis have a culture of exaggeration - part of the national character to a degree. It is also a vestige, he says, of dealing with the brutal former regime and the false witness often associated with trauma.

At the same time, Coalition Provisional Authority officials, he says, have an interest in favorable portrayals of events in Iraq.

“How do you reconcile the two? You just report as fully and honestly as possible … and hope you get somewhere close to the truth.”

“You’re probably not going to hit it exactly. You’re going to get some things wrong. … But, you do the best you can, and you hope that with an accumulation of stories and facts from other reporters all competing against one another that you have this kind of ‘media Darwinism’ that kind of gets the truth to funnel up.”

This trip

Allbritton says this trip begins in Baghdad, and he’s not sure how much latitude he’ll have beyond the capital city.

“The roads are really, really unsafe,” he said. “It really depends on the security situation to see which areas I can travel to. I’ve been hearing from people that it’s just almost impossible to get out of Baghdad.”

But, unlike many other in-country journalists, who have editors to remind them of insurance costs, Allbritton has the option to leave the Green Zone.

“The only thing stopping me is concerns for safety, and that’s the call I have to make. I don’t have an editor, in that sense.”

In light of recent unrest and direct targeting of Americans, Blocletters wishes Christopher Allbritton a safe return to Iraq. Use that concern for your safety wisely, and keep us informed.