ADAORA UDOJI
Adaora Udoji is a hard-working ABC TV News reporter based in London, but these days she is in Doha, Qatar, covering the war in Iraq. As the only African-American woman based in the region for the duration of the invasion, she finds herself in a very unprecedented position.
This foreign correspondent is no stranger to war though, having covered the Afghanistan campaign in 2001 and reporting extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent years as well.
In 1995, Adaora met NBC TV News correspondent, Ron Allen, while each was covering the infamous, high profiled OJ Simpson trial. Fittingly, the two can now trace their courtship to time spent together at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, back in 1999. They exchanged marriage vows in the fall of 2002. Now they are dubbed: the most high-profile Black couple in journalism.
In an e-mail interview, done in early April, Adaora spoke about her globe-trotting life as a journalist and also gave her candid views about what has been called “Iraqi Freedom.”
Q: What are your views on embedded journalists covering this war?
A: It’s an amazing window into history in the making. The pictures are unprecedented. The world is watching events literally as they’re happening, 24 hours a day. We’re learning more about the troops than we ever knew, what life is like in a battle, how they survive. But it’s important to remember, very important to remember — these reports are simply a snapshot, a very small slice of what makes up the bigger picture. The embedded reports are sort of like having one piece of a 500-piece puzzle, as the Defense Department often reminds us. Still, I have no doubt the impact of the pictures is strong; pictures, after all, are worth a thousand words.
Q: Some of the big-name Pentagon correspondents insist that “embeds” are only repeating what they have heard and that they are often wrong or do not have the information that would make a story credible. Are “embeds” just a convenience for the government to keep information well controlled?
A: I haven’t seen or heard those criticisms. But my argument would be, better to have more information than less. If they weren’t there, we would only be getting the American and Iraqi perspective, both parties involved. As for mistakes, I think the viewer understands this is a breaking, developing story and the first versions — whether from witnesses or any kind of officials, be they American or other — may not always turn out to be correct, despite best intentions. With so much chaos, it always takes time for the truth to rise, no doubt sometimes decades, but ultimately it comes out. This is why history books are written. But I think it’s of tremendous value to have journalists on the ground, because it adds another voice to events.
Q: Do you think you have been kept informed of what is really going on in the war?
A: I don’t think we really know what’s going on overall. It’s the nature of war. The US military has to maintain confidences in the interest of security. The Iraqi government certainly has its own agenda, it’s a dictatorship so all information is always very tightly controlled and staged. And the things they say are very difficult to confirm because people are not allowed to roam freely and speak freely.
But I do think in time we gain greater and greater understanding, especially after we hear from troops on the ground, in the air and at sea. Especially after we hear from aid workers, politicians and the Iraqi people about what they thought, what they believed and how they came to understand what was going on. It’s like an unfolding painting starting from the bottom up; the sketches go in, the colorus are slapped on, and voila, there’s a complete scene.
Q: Have the troops been affected by the protests in the USA?
A: The folks at Central Command always put on a good face.
Q: Many people have said how disproportionately black/brown/poor the troops are — and Charles Rangel and others have argued that restoring the draft would bring more equity, and therefore, make the decisions to go to war less easy for the powerful to make. What are your thoughts on that?
A: To be honest, I’ve been on the road so much that I only caught bits and pieces of this story. I really haven’t read enough about it.
Q: As a Black woman, do you feel like a pioneer as a war correspondent? As far as I know, there have been no other Black American women journalists covering wars to the extent that you have. Is that changing, or are you “it” for the foreseeable future?
A: Well, I’ve never thought about it. There are so many other reporters — men, Black and White, and women — who have taken much greater risks than I have in search of the truth. I guess I am the only African-American woman to have covered both wars; can’t think of anyone else. And to be honest, I hadn’t even thought of it in that way before. And remember I’m in the region, not on the battlefield.
I must say I’m just not that brave. I don’t think I could deal with bullets flying and people dying around me, people I’ve just talked with. I cover this from a distance, although much, much closer than the vast majority of Americans.
I know I’m not “it” per se. This time around, there are so many African-American women coming from the States to cover the war at least for a little while. At ABC News alone, some of these women have come for a couple of weeks: Robin Roberts from Good Morning America was out in Kuwait for a couple of weeks and Lisa Salters from ESPN. Tamala Edwards has been out here more than a month. There are other women from other networks who have been in at least Turkey, from what I’ve seen. So this time I’m not alone.
But I’m the only African-American woman based overseas. It is a joy, a thrill and always a challenge. I always tell young folks, if you’re looking for adventure, this is it. This is a huge world. It is changing. But this is a tough road; I don’t travel as much as some correspondents. Take my husband (NBC News’ Ron Allen); he’s been home for three weeks the past six months. It’s been a busy news year. But we do it because we have a passion for adventure and seeing things unfold for ourselves.
Having said all that, I think African-Americans should know and believe that this job is for them too. And if some young woman out there sees me and thinks she can do it better, then I will be thrilled.
That is the point on this life journey to find the path that gives us satisfaction and joy. I hope that little girl or woman thinks to herself, “I can do it better.” It’s a great gig. I’ve met some of the leaders of the Taliban. I’ve taken a ride through the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, met Berbers in their villages. I’ve watched Tiger Woods go for the grand slam in Scotland. The Williams sisters battle it out at Wimbledon. The Afghanistan sunset. The Persian Gulf’s blue waters and magnificent sand dunes. I’ve watched Queen Elizabeth ride past St James Park, and on and on and on.
Q: You have covered wars before. Is there any difference in your coverage of this one? Is the US military different in its treatment of journalists this time, as opposed to when you were in Afghanistan?
A: No, that’s one thing you can always count on. I don’t think there’s been a military administration in the history of the world that has welcomed a free press with open arms, at least not on the record. Our interests conflict. Sometimes there are things they don’t want us to know about, that we are trying to find out about.
Q: How did you come to be assigned to the Iraq war. Is it like winning the lottery or more like being dragooned into servitude?
A: I’m based in London. So this is my beat, I’m glad to say. It is surreal and challenging and unforgettable to have had a front row seat — I know it’s a cliché, but a front row seat to history. Two wars in two years and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in between. I’ve seen these things unravelling, met some of the people involved and seen some of the places it’s happening. It’s an amazing world we live in. To think I could have spent my days in a courtroom is unbelievable now. I don’t regret going to law school, but I sure do not regret jumping over to journalism.
Q: Is one war different from another? Is this war more dangerous than the Afghanistan conflict?
A: This war is very different on so many levels. First of all, here there are 250,000 US troops on the ground fighting. The US has gone into a war with much international criticism. Covering it is different because we have so much more information from reporters spread out along the many veins of the story. There were none in Afghanistan in the beginning. And Pakistan had strong opposition to the war in Afghanistan. Big protests all the time, some just around the corner from where I was staying. There’s very little visible opposition here in Qatar. The Persian Gulf has such mixed feelings about the war. On the record, officials say war is the last resort. Off the record, there is no love lost for Saddam Hussein.
Also, I know I am my parents’ daughter. With a Nigerian father and an Irish American mother, I was destined to hit the road. Even before I lived in Nigeria in high school, I loved travelling the world. Living in a very eclectic international world, I was destined to end up curious, very curious. I’ll tell you, in the past three years especially, but in an eight-year career as a journalist, the one thing I have learned is that there is magic on earth. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people in the most desperate circumstance: Afghans in refugee camps with nothing, who only want to make us, the visitors, feel at home and on and on. But at the end of the day, I have learned a powerful lesson: No matter what happens, how horrible, how sad, nothing can kill the human spirit. It always rises and always will.
Our friends and family think Ron and I are absolutely nuts. We stand there and report how the State Department is advising people to leave the area and we stay. Ron has spent months in Baghdad and just about every other war zone in the past decade. But it is a passion, a drive to want to be there, to see and try to make sense of it for people at home. We’re just lucky to have found one another, because on this journey we’re in it together.
