Thread by @DanLamothe

I’ve been noodling with this @jackshafer piece this afternoon. Parts of it ring true. But other parts fundamentally are at odds with my lived experience.

politico.com/news/magazine/…

I’ll say this with background up front: I’ve spent months of my life around the U.S. military as a journalist in Afghanistan. I’ve seen ambushes launched, IEDs explode, airstrikes land, etc.

My experiences aren’t particularly remarkable in that regard, either. There’s a generation of us journalists out there, and there’s always *someone* who saw something louder, crazier, scarier, darker.

On a personal level, that stuff is significant. But there’s more to the puzzle. It’s also divorces, 3 a.m. text messages from struggling friends, and Gold Star families who stay in touch and wonder how America moved on so quickly from previous conflicts.

“War sells,” this piece says.

Certainly, there is a ton of attention on the front end of a new one. People want to understand something awful like this, in my experience.

That changes over time, though. Ask those of us who covered Afghanistan in 2015, 2016, 2018, etc. Journalists who did write about that war in those years found a readership that was often disinterested.

What kind of attention will Ukraine get in two years? Not sure, but it’s probably worth talking about.

The U.S. hasn’t even finished sorting out the refugee situation in Afghanistan, all these months later.

“War reporting is easy,” this piece says, while allowing that it takes courage. I have found the opposite to be true.

There are so very many gaps in knowledge while covering conflict, making it incredibly difficult to be accurate. It’s wise to be humble about that.

Was that a missile that crashed into that building? Artillery fire? A spiraling plane that had just been shot down?

Hard to say, especially when you’re relying on people going through trauma as sources.

I’ve been at the Pentagon for this one and tried to help people understand from here. One of the things I’ve had to say in response to questions is: I’m not sure.

The ongoing discussion about Russian casualties is one example. Numbers appear to be in the thousands but have ranged wildly, and U.S. officials have said they have low confidence in the estimates they have disclosed. That’s just where we are.

I am so incredibly thankful for my colleagues who are braving missiles and everything else to tell this story.

And I am confident that we’re going to be sorting through the baggage, confusion and difficulties of this war for a long, long time.