The Vedanta Kesari

December 1995

Journalism and Power

I can make no claims for motives of altruism in my work: only curiosity. And if there has been any cohesive theme to my work it has been around power and powerlessness. I have always been fascinated by the uses and misuses of power: who has it, who doesn't, what people will do to get it, and what they do with it once they have it. No doubt, it was my own sense of powerlessness in a world of impossible randomness that propelled me towards journalism. If I could have no control over my family, my community, my country, or my planet, then at least I could gleam the secrets directly from those that did and did not.

Of course, journalism with its access to the powerful is a form of power in itself and I cannot deny the adrenalized headiness that comes with the job. Reporting is my antidote for my feelings of helplessness, my lack of power. It is the way I contribute to a seemingly indifferent universe. Journalism has the power of throwing a magical spotlight on its subjects-making the unseen, seen, the unheard, heard, the ignored, noted. It can be an enormously potent force, a power that must be used with judicious care. Indeed, it is a sacred trust.

I appreciate and admire reporters who day in and day out neutrally record the day's events, but it is not what I do. I write only about people, events, stories that I care deeply about. If nothing else, I know I will need to summon enough passion to see me through the process: the legwork, the research, the often humiliating hustle of nailing down interviews - before one gets to do a lick of writing. Generally speaking, I write about somebody or something when I can no longer contain my own curiosity or outrage.

While I have my share of misgivings about what currently being called advocacy journalism, neither do I come to a story as a tabula rasa. What the French call engage - a commitment to certain social and ethical values- is a fair description of how and what I do. However, whatever prior opinions I may hold are invariably shattered. Stories, like people, are always complex matters. Rarely is a villain only a villain, a murderer only a murderer, a revolutionary only a revolutionary. As the cliché goes, 'every killer is some mother's son.' Fidel Castro is and has been at various times a revolutionary, coward, tyrant, visionary, a monster, and so on.

Always I am surprised and disappointed in unforeseen ways. The Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos, floored me with his schoolboy humour. When asked by a human rights activist who accompanied me, what provisions he most needed in his jungle hideout, he responded, "an inflatable sex doll." Nor will I ever forget Benazir Bhutto strutting into her sister's Knightsbridge flat decked out in a full length sable to discuss women's rights with me or the single-minded ruthlessness of Turkey's Tansu Ciller so chillingly at odds with her blonde Gidget-friendly looks.

I was taken aback to learn that the sheriff who 'escorted' me out of the town of Lynch, Virginia in 1978 was a Klansman. Nor was I quite prepared to discover the supremacy of fashion - even in the rain forest of Chiapas where two scrawny Zapatista soldiers demanded my $280 designer combat boots. When I suggested that they take something else-namely, some more food-they smiled and raised their rifles, reminding me who was in charge. Then there was the Saudi scholar Mai Yamani who touched my arm at the conclusion of our interview and asked, 'Do you like flamenco dancing? It's my passion. I dance five nights a week.' And she began to dance.

Even the most chillingly bleak stories have stunned me with curious paradoxes and surprises. How does one explain, for example, how a region such as the Middle East, notorious for its repression of women, has produced three women presidents/prime ministers while the United States has yet to elect one. Could it be that the most astute students of power are its victims as Yeats mused about Zeus' rape of Leda, 'Did she put on his power before the indifferent beak let her drop.'

As for method, I find that the more empathetic I am with my subject, no matter what deeds or crimes he or she may have committed, the more successful I am. When I am interviewing the powerful, the rich or the very famous, sometimes the only way I can steady my nerves is to repeat to myself mantra-like, 'I'm here to be of service,' which puts the focus directly on the subject, where it should be.

When I am covering disasters, accidents, murders and general wretched of the earth, I am often reminded that 'there but for the grace of God go I.' Always, the challenge is not to judge, but to observe, and carry the story back to you.

Ann Louise Bardach is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and also writes for The New Republic. She received this year's PEN USA Award for journalism.