The Tangled Web

As a journalist who has spent seven years reporting on war and conflict in the field, I have often butted heads with Washington-based analysts and editors who never seem to leave their offices. In his recent feature [“Sign of the Times,” Report, May], James Harkin touches on the idea that we should be wary of information that comes from those who have never reported from the regions they describe. This should be shouted from the rooftops. For policymakers and journalists alike, the dissonance between on-the-ground and online reporting is of genuine and abiding concern.

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