Difficult Tales Told By Reporter on HBO

The film Reporter documents several tragedies at once.
The first is a story of genocides occurring now with little attention. Secondarily, there is the issue why it is so difficult to get humans, and particularly Americans, interested in stopping starvation and death. And the third is the declining power and influence of the mainstream media to find tragic stories and inform the public.
In the center of all these stories is Nick Kristof, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times who is a key reason why we’re aware of Darfur and other trouble spots around the globe.
Unlike so many in the punditry business, Kristof goes out and finds news, rather than simply commenting on what is bouncing around cable TV and the blogosphere.
Reporter follows Kristof as he packs his duffel, camera and notebooks before heading to his office to pick up a med student and a teacher who won a contest to travel with him. Then, passports and visas in hand, they head off to the Congo to see firsthand the effects of war and starvation.
The film, executive produced by Ben Affleck, was originally screened during the Sundance Film Festival. The reporter will air on HBO beginning Thursday.
To a degree, this is an adventure story, a trip into the heart of darkness. After meeting victims of manmade horrors, Kristof manages to meet with a feared warlord whose forces are believed to be responsible for mass killings and rape. His side of the story: he wants peace. Surprisingly, the father of six leads his people in daily prayers and insists on feeding his guests dinner before guaranteeing their safe passage back. (This warlord is later arrested by Rwandan troops.)
Getting eyewitnesses to both sides of the story is important to Kristof because victims of atrocities are no more reliable than the perpetrators as sources of information.
Finding the story is only part of the job. Kristof wants his readers to help put a stop to the hunger, disease and killing he writes about. So he has studied what it takes to get people to pay attention to stories like his. It’s important to tell it as one person’s struggle (the returns are much better than for a group, even as small a number as two). In Congo, he finds such a woman. They rush her to the hospital, but she dies nonetheless from starvation and infection.
Such singular tales are important in overcoming “psychic numbing,” which limits the amount of compassion humans can generate in the face of overwhelming but distant horrors.
Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert does a great job in making this point while Mr. Kristof appears as a guest.
Kristof and the film worry that cutbacks at newspapers and TV news outlets will make it harder for such stories to be told.
“If journalism is just stirring up issues already in the pot then we’re not really contributing that much to society,” he says. “The way to have an impact is you go to places and you put things on the agenda.”
This documentary may play a small part in putting the Congo on the agenda. It may also play a small part in adding to Mr. Kristof’s reputation.