Mallory's Story—Flintoff Speech

NPR Correspondent Reports on Iraq at USU
By Mallory Hughes

Corey Flintoff, NPR correspondent, spoke on the Iraq War Wednesday afternoon in front of a nearly full auditorium of students and NPR listeners.

Flintoff has been employed with NPR for the past 18 years and was just asked in 2002 to step out of the newscaster’s booth and into the Foreign Desk.

Flintoff began his career in Bethel, Alaska and was given attention from NPR after covering the Alaska Valdeez oil spill.

He was part of the “Alaska Mafia” comprising of a group of now NPR reporters who once worked in Alaska public radio.

Flintoff has been to Iraq and to other foreign countries to cover many war time situations, so he was an obvious candidate to speak to the audience at Utah State with a first-hand point of view.

Flintoff was approached by Cathy Ives, UPR Station Director, at an event he spoke at in Southern Utah last Spring.

Flintoff’s topic of the Iraq War was an obvious choice for him, but he did not know until he arrived at Utah State “what he would title the topic speech,” he joked.

Flintoff attended several classes while on campus and wanted to “reach out to a new generation of listeners” he stated.

Flintoff noted that he suspected college students to be “self-involved I-Pod listeners,” but was pleasantly surprised to find that students asked pressing questions, some in which reminded him of why he did what he did for a career as a journalist.

He touched on the feelings he had for his duty to give a good source of information to the public, his “journalistic duty,” he felt.

Flintoff spoke of his time in Iraq and stated that “threats don’t go away” when asked about the dangers he faced.

He found that television reporters were unable to move around dangerous areas independently throughout the country because of the attention they drew to themselves.

Flintoff on the other hand was able to move around for longer periods of time without being seen “because he was not drawing as much attention to himself as the reporters with crews.”

Flintoff was able to “be invisible” because he attempted to have “as little presence as possible” and he found that he could do that when he was “embedded in a military unit”-meaning that he is under the cover a militia unit.

He found that it was easy to find himself thinking as the militia men are, more suspecting and observant of everyone and everything even including.

He recalled a time when he was embedded that he began noticing civilians in a different light, telling of a man on the street “the man on the cell phone may be calling in your location in.”

He brought up a question he was asked in one of the classes he was visiting pertaining to the government regulations put on reporters in war torn areas.

He answered by explaining that “there is not a need to censor because the ability for opportunities to get out and observe are so few”.

He explained that there are fewer than 70 foreign reporters in Iraq right now because the cost is so high, the cost of lives and the purchasing of necessities to keep reporters alive.

Flintoff gave NPR as an example stating that “it costs $1 million per year to maintain a bureau in the Iraq area”, and “the car ride” to the media compound where NPR and other media sources are based, “is $2,800.”

He joked about the seven-mile car ride as being “the most expensive taxi ride you’ll ever take.” But the “taxi ride” is of course an exaggeration of the actual armored chauffer driven vehicle.

Flintoff made it clear that the audience understood the danger met by the attempt to report in an area that is so against foreign presence, but they do have help from Iraqi’s in the area who risk it all to help.

“People risk their lives and the lives of their families,” he stated, “we owe them a great deal more than they have been given,” of the citizens who risk it all to help the reporters get the information they need.

Flintoff ended with a question and answer portion in which he took answered questions from members in the audience, some of which even stumped him for a few short seconds.

One question which pertained to a subject of informing militia of dangers they might encounter a subject Mike Wallace completely disagrees with.

Flintoff on the other hand felt that although he had never encountered a situation, “of course I would,” he stated.

He recounted times when reporters had informed and were penalized, not legally, but “received the cold shoulder” when it came to being reassigned or re-invited back to an area.

Flintoff ended his speech by stating that he does “hate to be a pessimistic” but he has noticed that stories he tends to do are on “how things are done tend to fail.” His editor even noted him as having “good intentions gone to hell.”

Flintoff covered many topics and told stories to give the audience a feel for the experience he has had but explained, “I tell my listeners how limited a voice I am able to give you.”

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