CNN's Michael Ware: "I Don't Know How To Come Home"

TV Newser: Thursday, Dec 11
Ware: "I Don't Know How To Come Home"



In a 2,500-word enlightening, and ultimately haunting, profile of CNN's Michael Ware, Men's Journal's Greg Veis gives readers a look at what the horror's of war can do to a journalist on the frontlines.

"I am not the same fucking person," Ware tells Veis. "I am not the same person. I don't know how to come home."

But he is now. And the self-described "war dog" is adjusting back to civilian life. Veis describes a video Ware shot after he volunteered to accompany the unit he was covering on a "terrifying," pitch black, raid against insurgents in Fallujah.

The staff sergeant on that raid, David Bellavia, regards Ware as one of the Marines' own. "I can't stand the media, but I would go through hell with a bucket of gasoline for Michael Ware," he says. "He goes through all the things we go through — 55 cigs a day, no sleep. And if we were allowed to drink, we'd drink as much as he does. When you look at him, you look into vacant eyes. He looks like my military friends do. He's seen enough shit."

There is just one mention of CBS' Lara Logan in the piece, and it comes in one of the most revealing paragraphs:

"Fellow reporters claim Ware has bragged about being drunk on air (he denies it) and has destroyed television equipment during epic tantrums ('Things get broken in bureaus from time to time; it's just normal wear and tear,' he demurs). He admits to having a terrible time sustaining relationships and once got in an altercation with another man over his former girlfriend (and fellow tabloid fodder) CBS reporter Lara Logan. He can't sleep and watches trash TV until the sun comes up over Baghdad. In short, he hasn't been well for a while."

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/ware_i_dont_know_how_to_come_home_103118.asp#more

Link to Men's Journal, "CNN's Prisoner of War": http://www.mensjournal.com/cnns-prisoner-of-war

"He had been hunted, kidnapped, and told he was filming his own execution. But CNN correspondent Michael Ware had no plans to leave Iraq. Now, it won’t leave him."

before it's too late. :(

I think it is starting to really mess him up.

part time anyway. I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a world like that, and I hope I don't have to.

I found this interesting...

God damn those fuckers who sell war as some great adventure, something to be desired.

on Michael crying about being fucked up. He/she said Ware has been very pro-Iraq War throughout and is one of the enablers who gave all of these glowing reports of how heroic everything was, blah blah blah.

I have only seen him a few times but I remember being pissed because he was alibiing for the military or Bush, so I think I know where the commenter was coming from.

That adrenaline rush is as addictive as any drug. Being in combat, if you aren't killed or fucked up, is a real RUSH. It's like nothing else I've ever experienced, so it's easy to understand how some of these adrenaline junkies like Ware get in over their heads. The tragic part is that so many get to die for someone else's mega-rush.

The thrill of danger, indeed. Rest assured he gets paid the big bucks, unlike the soldiers he hangs out with. (The commenter made this point so I cannot claim it as my own even though I totally agree).

Expect a book soon.

of what was going on over there when I did see his reports.

I don't remember him ever coming off like that. Every report that I remember him making has been brutally honest with no cheer-leading. The guy looked like total hell for months and my husband wondered aloud if he hadn't become addicted to heroine.

I do clearly remember his shutting Kyra Phillips down one day and I wish I could remember the details now but I can't. I just remember he made his report and she followed it with some typically vapid response (I think using the word "perspective" and if looks could kill Kyra would be gone. And with obviously suppressed rage he repeated what he'd said and told her that was the only perspective there was/she needed/... something...

It was great and I hate that I've forgotten everything about it except my impression that he was DEFINITELY a "member of the reality based community".

he was putting on it. But I did see him a couple of times when he seemed for real. Other than that I don't remember seeing much of him because I don't watch much TV.

Sometimes I tend to be pretty critical of war reporting because it often seems so pro-our side even if it's not blatant. That comes from having been around war correspondents in a war zone and seeing how high they get on being around the grunts, especially when the heat is on. It's a natural impulse to be drawn to the warriors from your own country especially when you are in a firefight and your life depends on them. So it's easy to understand how they tend to get pulled in so far that they lose the objectivity they are supposed to have as journalists. It taints the view and skews the observations toward the guys on our side. That's what embedding is all about. It's very hard to write hard, cold stuff about the bad things your comrades are doing, especially when you are experiencing the hardships with them. One has to be very strong to remain empathetic and neutral toward the "enemy". Based on most of the reporting we got from corporate media types, I would say they are far from neutral observer/journalists. And the two times I remember being pissed at Ware he was not being blatant but I thought he was soft-pedalling and hewing too close to the BushCo line when I felt he should have been pitching hardballs.

Just my $.02 worth.

or perceived them differently if I did see them. I don't watch a lot of TV either - and MSNBC is on more than CNN so I'm in no position to dispute what you've seen of his reporting. I guess I just got a different impression from what I have seen.

Ware has been the only reporter in the mainstream media that has been telling the sad truth about the war. Remember his reaction to John McCain's visit to the market in Iraq? He blasted him (and I believe Joe Lieberman). Ware has been refuting the Bush Administration's claims of "winning" for the past four or five years. I believe he should be commended by us and his peers for excellence in journalism.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER make yourself the story.

It is completely acceptable and ethical to write up/tape a first person account FOR YOUR OWN PUBLICATION/NETWORK.....but in the journalistic world, as soon as other publications start vaunting you as some kind of "hero" you are considered an asshole.

Exhibit A: Anderson Cooper.

There is good treatment for PTSD these days.

It's obviously time for him to take a break.

You don't hear John Burns from the NYT going on like this.

Give it rest...you are a reporter...not a hero....the soldiers are heroes.

You have absolutely no idea what this man has gone through in the war zone. None.

Yet there you are, passing judgment on him as if you did know.

You also assume that John Burns' experiences were the same, but again, you don't have a clue.

Then you finish it off with a classic straw man - Michael Ware has never claimed to be a hero - yet you imply that he has.

Then you say, "the soldiers are heroes". Did you even read the post? The Marines he was embedded with said he's been through the shit with them and consider him one of their own. Sounds to me like the heroes are calling him a hero, too. Despite your praise of the troops, you completely fucking ignored what they had to say. How convenient for you.

All in all, I'd give you an D-. I spared you from an F because you got one thing right: Michael Ware needs a break.

May your own nice safe life as a critic on DU never know real PERIL..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ware

In September 2004, while investigating reports that Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi's nascent "al-Qaeda in Iraq" group was openly claiming control of the Haifa Street area of Baghdad, Ware was briefly held at gunpoint by terrorists loyal to Zarqawi who had pulled pins from live grenades and forced his car to stop. The men dragged him from the car and stood him beneath one of the banners, intending to film the execution with his own video camera. By threatening them with immediate and violent retaliation, his local guides, including members of the Ba'athist Party, were able to win his release. (Ware has stated that had this happened only a few months later, when Zarqawi's group had grown stronger, he would have been killed.)