Findings and analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Findings and analysis - Essay Example Three articles written by each of these writers were compiled. Shadid’s works include A Boy Who Was Like a Flower (2004), Syria’s Sons of No One (2011), and, House of Stone (2012). Gaskell’s work include Bombs put Kirkuk in line as next hotbed (2007), As Holidays Come and Go, War Barely Takes a Break (2009), and Army Reports Grim Milestone in Troop Suicides (2012). On the surface, there are glaring differences in terms of the content of the reportage. One of the most important of these is that Shadid’s subjects focused on individuals whereas Gaskell’s reports were more on the bigger picture. Shadid took the inductive approach to writing, using specific personalities and situations in order to report about the bigger picture of war. The implication of this is significant. First, there is the fact that the reporter was able to infiltrate the battlefront by chronicling the experiences of the victims who are caught in the crossfire of the battles. Gaske ll on the other hand focused on the movements of the war from the army’s or the strategists’ perspectives, hovering from above, exploring general terms such as army reports, army experiences and so forth. This difference implies several important things. First, there is the possibility that male correspondents report closer to the battle lines whereas female correspondents seem to be content watching from afar. This point is supported by the series of news feeds by renowned female war correspondent, Raghida Dergham, writing her pieces in a blog for The Huffington Post back in 2007 as she covered Iraq. The subjects of her articles were general themes such as the impact of the presidential election Lebanon, diplomatic tussles between major players in the Iraq War such as those involving Russia and the United States, Iran and Syria and so forth. There were interviews to individual participants but these were mostly prominent personalities, who stay away from the battlefie ld - Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki, etc. It is clear that male reporters are at an advantage or are more capable in covering the war as it happens. They are more likely to be found at the thick of things, say when gunfight erupts or the first to arrive and cover the casualties and damage of war. This is not to say that female reporters are less reliable. They are more likely to get information from decision makers and, hence, more effective in reporting diplomatic subjects, policy decisions and strategic issues. This aspect is supported by the analysis of the responses to this study’s interview questions by male and female war correspondents in the next case comparison. Male war correspondents are also more likely to report about fighting in detail as well as an emphasis on male subjects as what happened in the three articles by Shadid. On the other hand, female reporters to tend to focus on themes about women, children and family. The re could be a preferential bias to each of the subjects mentioned according to the gender differences of the reporters. While this study is not equipped to quantify this point, they are aggravated by two important variables. The first is the issue previously mentioned: women are constrained to report from the battlefield and, similarly, women are less likely to be foun