Kimberly Dozier: A Tribute – Just World News with Helena Cobban

Those of us who knew Kimberly Dozier as a University of Virginia graduate student gasped when we learned that she was critically wounded, on Memorial Day while working as a CBS correspondent in Iraq. For the past 12 years, the last three in Iraq, Kimberly was doing exactly what she had counseled fellow journalists to do in her Virginia Master’s Thesis – to report Middle East news professionally, with objectivity, courage, steeled independence, breadth of perspective, and an unflinching empathy for her subjects.
Kimberly Dozier is one of the best, and we join in keeping a candle lit for her full recovery. In this small tribute, I offer a few glimpses into Kimberly Dozier’s Virginia studies and suggest how she became one of our finest, if not widely appreciated, journalists covering the Middle East.
UVA Background
Hailing from Hawaii, Kimberly Garrington Dozier came to the University of Virginia in January 1992 to study Foreign Affairs and the Middle East in particular. A high honors graduate of Wellesley College, where she majored in Human Rights and Spanish, Kimberly already had several years of Washington journalism experience. To help pay her UVA freight, Kimberly tended bar long hours at a local hot spot on Charlottesville’s famed “corner,” the St. Marteen Café. Think Marion Ravenwood of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
At the time, I was continuing graduate studies and beginning my own travels to Iran. As such, Kimberly and I shared several extraordinary mentors, including R.K. Ramazani and Abdulaziz Sachedina. As she told the Virginia Arts & Sciences magazine last April, she remains grateful to both professors, praising their insights into the Middle East turmoil then brewing as “like an anatomy of 9/11 years before it happened.”
One fellow classmate, Scott Waalkes, a recent Fulbright Scholar and now on faculty at Malone College, remembers Kimberly as “thoughtful” and “engaging,” always asking “probing questions.” Another classmate, Beth Doughtery, now holding an endowed chair at Beloit College, fondly recalls “hanging out” with Kimberly, as a fellow free spirit and member of the “women’s college mafia” at UVA: Kimberly was “smart, articulate, fun, driven, and obviously headed for success.”

I also remember Kimberly wrestling with the idea to pursue a Ph.D. Yet as her M.A. studies progressed, her new theoretical and regional understandings did not overtake her passion for journalism. The two meshed in Kimberly’s M.A. thesis, defended in August 1993 and entitled, “The U.S. Media’s Take on Islamic ‘Fundamentalism’ in Egypt: An Evolving Vision of the Islamic World.” In addition to Ramazani, her other formal thesis advisor was Ambassador David Newsom, himself once a distinguished journalist.
Kimberly’s thesis findings set the table for the career that followed. Believing that “an unexamined press leads to an irresponsible one,” her thesis opens with the simple question: “Is the media doing its job responsibly” in reporting from the Middle East?

By responsible, she meant, is the media presenting unbiased and accurate information, or does it tend more toward sloppy “short-hand terms” that sensationally reduce major political social and historical trends to shallow catch phrases and 30 second explanations?

Focused on the time capsule of Egypt, 1992-1993, the thesis provides content analysis of the reporting by six major US media organizations on Egyptian related Islamist developments. Many of the news stories reviewed have an all too familiar ring to them today. Hosni Mubarak, then and now, sidesteps pressure for democratic reform by claiming an anti-democratic nature of the Islamist opposition. And if that doesn’t work, then blame Iran for being the source of all the trouble.

Highest praise in Kimberly’s thesis went to the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor, for consistently going beyond mere event reporting to educating readership on the history and nature of Islam and Egypt. Good marks also went to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour and individual Washington Post reports.

Reporters who dug past rhetoric and consider alternate and deeper interpretations get higher marks, such as those who challenged the thesis of militant Islam inevitably being on a collision course with the West. Likewise, kudos went to reporters who provided a human context to get beyond stereotypical images of raving militants: “Their frustrations are real, their desperations, while not justified, are explained.”

Curiously, those reporters coming in for harsher critiques wrote for the New York Times. Youssef Ibrahim stories on Egypt are faulted for severe bias, uncritical and exclusive reliance on Mubarak government sources, absence of facts, and for being “rife with unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo.”

Rejecting “easy” theories of a preconceived supranational Islamist religious conspiracy, Kimberly suggests her fellow journalists are “more likely to find a ‘conspiracy’ of political repression by governments in power, be they U.S.-friendly Saudi Arabia, or the anti-Western Islamic regime in the Sudan.”

In short, Kimberly Dozier exhibited in her thesis solid ideas of what makes a great journalist on the Middle East. She may even have found a few journalist role models, in Robin Wright and Caryle Murphy.
As Professor Ramazani today reflects, when Kimberly Dozier was at Virginia, she was already more determined, independent, empathetic, and mature than most other young graduate students. While she valued guidance from her mentors, she was “persistent” in going her own way, in her “commitment to go to the realities” of the evolving world. As it turned out, Kimberly’s preferences and gifts were to “be a reporter, rather than an academic back bencher.”
In Journalism:
Its my view that Kimberly Dozier, as a journalist, has done as much or more than our academic classmates in emulating Professor Ramazani’s core method – to foster empathy in her American audience – her students – so that they can understand “the boiling resentments” brewing in the Middle East. As she told Arts & Sciences,

“If I can make this place real for them, if I can make these people real for them, and explain their feelings, their motivations, their heartbreak, what drives them, then Americans will be better able to decide what their government should be doing to represent us worldwide.”

Kimberly obviously then does not accept the standard cynical view of her colleagues that no one reporter could make a difference. For Kimberly, her work matters:

“If Americans don’t understand what’s going on out here, if I don’t make it relatable to them, they’re going to turn off. They’re going to turn inward. They’re going to ignore the rest of the world to their peril.”

After Virginia, Kimberly worked initially in Cairo in freelance reporting, including for the Washington Post, then anchored several years for the BBC Radio World Service, before joining CBS Radio out of London in 1996. Assignments took her to conflicts in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, and China. After receiving three “Gracie Awards” from American Women in Radio and Television, Kimberly moved to Television in February 2002, covering the Israel-Palestinians conflict for the New York CBS TV affiliate. Her work then included an interview with Yasir Arafat when he was under siege in Ramallah. She was picked up by CBS TV in the summer of 2003 and has been reporting from Iraq ever since.
In accolades cited below, Kimberly is praised for her “legendary work ethic.” That may be an understatement. In checking CBS transcript files, there are well over 500 separate reports filed by Kimberly since August 2003. Apart from the obligatory stories driven by daily bad news and surprise brief stops by US officials, she filed hundreds of diverse and more reflective reports, including those on Iraqi security forces training, Iraqi politician profiles, reconstruction, infrastructure failings, armor shortages for US troops, torture, Abu Ghraib, Iraqi women, Iraqi children, and public relations battles between insurgents and US leaders.
Its rather ironic that Kimberly made it to prime time TV, the one medium that her thesis observed was most constrained by time and space from doing balanced, in depth journalism. Rarely are her CBS TV reports more than 500 words in length, and that’s counting visual descriptions and comments from subjects. Yet I think she’s been improvising, pushing for the best possible within the limits of her medium.
In watching Kimberly and reviewing transcripts, I marvel at her capacity to pack a compelling thesis for thought into a single opening or closing sentence. Late last November, a report on the cultural problems that US trainers were having with Iraqi trainees closed with the following telling observation::

“One US police trainer told us the first thing he teaches new Iraqi recruits is ‘No torture during interrogation,’ and the first question every new class comes back with is ‘Why?’”

No doubt Kimberly’s devotion to cranking out so many stories may be driven in part by a sense that there are multiple angles needing told for each story, even if in separate segments. For example, one day she reported on US soldiers who believed passionately in the Iraq cause; another day she reported on US reserve troops who were bitter about their tours having been extended. In each case, the subjects got to tell and explain their viewpoint, with only modest explanation or closure from Kimberly.
Ironically – if not inevitably – Kimberly has frequently been attacked by right wing groups and bloggers for lack of balance. Even on the day she was wounded and her heart had literally stopped on the emergency table, one site could not resist posting a distasteful selective trashing of her record.
In part because she’s filed more reports than anyone else, she has the dubious “honor” of being at the top of the attack lists of groups like the “Media Research Center.” At root, her reports are condemned for not being sufficiently positive, that is, for not concentrating on the good news supposedly happening in Iraq. That critique might seem silly, or at least not compelling today. Contrary to the Laura Ingraham’s and Ollie North’s out there, the war hasn’t gone badly because of “unpatriotic reporters” who couldn’t get off their “hotel balconies.”
Kimberly’s penchant for helping her audience understand how her subjects think and feel also caught flak from those who prefer black-and-white defenses of the Bush Administration. Her December 16, 2003 report on the mixed feelings of some Iraqis about the capture of Saddam Hussein “earned” her poster status in advertisements for the MRC screed, Weapons of Mass Distortion: the Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media. Kimberly’s alleged offense was to point out that,

A tyrant has fallen. But for some, he’s a fallen hero….Even many who suffered under Saddam have mixed feelings….Iraqis are like abused children scarred by the man who was both father figure and enforcer. His rules were simple. Obey, and he would provide jobs, food rations, electricity, and security. Rebel, and punishment was merciless. But Saddam Hussein also gave Iraqis dignity and pride. He became a symbol of defiance across the Arab world, never backing down from a fight… For many, his humiliation is their own.

It seems to me that what such critics want is not balance or understanding, but one-sided cheerleading and propaganda. Take her March 7 and 8, 2005 reporting on the incident where an Italian agent protecting a just released hostage was killed at an American checkpoint. Kimberly reported that the Italian journalist involved believed her car was deliberately targeted by the Americans. Yet Kimberly’s report also provided exactly equal space to US commanders who said it was a tragedy caused by confusion and soldiers who thought they were under attack. She didn’t have enough evidence herself to judge one way or the other; so she let both sides air their perspectives on what happened.
Kimberly no doubt also ruffled “true blue” feathers on February 23 of this year when she reported that some of Iraq’s leading Shiite leaders believed that the US was trying to undermine them and, as such, had given a green light to the terrorists who bombed a key Shiite holy shrine. Of course the US denied it. Yet surely Kimberly did us a service in reporting that key players that the US needed were disbelieving – and had reason to be.
In similar fashion, last July 19, Kimberly reported on the corrosive “reality” of rumors in Iraq, the sort of analysis that would not have a snowball’s chance of getting aired on Fox:

Whatever her standing with the far right, Kimberly’s professionalism and hard work apparently won the respect and admiration of the soldiers and commanders she covers. As Dan Rather wrote on the day she was injured,

Besides being so obviously knowledgeable about the war regions, her courage and work ethic win over even the most skeptical and wary soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. (OK, being a tall, blond beauty no doubt helps some, especially with first meetings. But the troops and commanders learn quickly that Kimberly is all business and wind up respecting her all the more for it.)

One soldier yesterday gave Kimberly his purple heart. Even the US political leadership found it better to engage than avoid her. In recent months, she had interviews with US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.
On the day of her wounding and the deaths of her two colleagues, Khalilzad wrote that,

“These brave journalists risked their lives to tell the world the story of a courageous people and a proud nation. The terrorists who committed this evil crime have shown themselves for who they are. They do not want the world to see the truth of what is happening in Iraq, where a determined people are fighting for freedom and liberty. That story must and will be told.

Yet ironically, Kimberly’s last broadcast story from Iraq, last Saturday, May 27, wasn’t about atrocities by “the terrorists” but about “the total breakdown in morality” by US troops who are accused by US military officials to have committed “cold-blooded murder” of up to 24 Iraqi civilians last fall in the Iraqi village of Haditha. In trademark fashion, Kimberly provided perspective to get behind the harsh emerging facts, and help her audience understand how this horror, this “indifference,” could have happened.

“One frustrated senior commander told me he still runs across American officers who boast of following a simple, brutal creed: Kill them all and let God sort them out.”

When asked by the CBS anchor about Iraqi reactions to the story, Kimberly observed,

Well, there’s actually been a very muted reaction from the Iraqi public, only because many Iraqis believe this kind of thing goes on all the time. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are putting out a constant stream of propaganda alleging American atrocities. Unfortunately, an incident like Haditha only makes Iraqis believe every other wild rumor that they’re getting fed.

Growing Fears….
Kimberly was not oblivious to the dangers she personally faced, and she was increasingly frustrated by the restrictions the deteriorating security situation caused for her craft, especially those with TV crews in tow. Yet on May 20, a year ago, she raised the possibility that the international media were not the main target of the insurgents. Instead,

“their target audience…may well be each and every Iraqi family who loses someone to one of those massive bombs. The militants keep telling Iraqis, you wouldn’t have lost your loved ones, if you’d rejected the Americans. And many Iraqis are starting to believe it. In their grief, some are lashing out at the one thing they CAN see and CAN attack – the Americans patrolling their streets.”

Likewise, she rejected arguments that Iraqi terror would go away if only reporters would ignore it. “Ignoring or not reporting that kind of anger, pain and grief won’t make it go away.”
Yet by January 30 of this year, Kimberly had dropped her illusions about journalists not being intentionally targeted:

“You know how they say a frog will let itself be boiled alive, sitting placidly in a pot of bubbling water, if you turn the heat up slowly enough? That used to be what Iraq was like for journalists.”

But now, instead of the water temperature only being slowly increased, “the worst fears of our pessimist bosses and security advisors [have been] realized.” She never got used to it; yet like the troops she’s often tasked to cover, you “feel the fear, and do it anyway.” So while admitting that the frog water is “toasting, verging on the scalding,” Kimberly rationalized that if “we, the journalists, are sitting in hot water, the troops we cover are hopping around on Hell’s coals…. We face a tiny fraction of their risk.”
Kimberly’s luck with the odds ran out on Memorial Day. In an e-mail note written for her producers the night before, she outline a planned story about “fighting on in memory of those who have fallen,” in which a wounded U.S. soldier insisted on going back to the battlefield. Her journalist colleagues are now haunted by that e-mail; as they too “soldier on.”
As I write this, we hear reports that Kimberly’s dearest loved ones are by her hospital bedside in Germany, and that her still critical condition may be improving. Amen to more news of progress.
Tributes
With one of their own now in the global spotlight, Kimberly’s senior CBS colleagues have been generous, if belated, with their accolades about her “smarts,” her dedication, her regional knowledge, her wit – and their affection for her. To former anchor Dan Rather,

“Kimberly Dozier is a top-rank, world-class television and radio news correspondent. She has been for quite awhile. Somehow, she’s never gotten full credit for her ability and her guts. She deserves it. She earned it — the hard way….Besides her courage, her work ethic has become a rightful legend. She works harder than a lumberjack or oilfield roughneck. This is one strong woman. People rarely think of a woman as pretty as Kimberly as being strong. She is. Strong of body and spirit.”

Senior CBS correspondent Allen Pizzey is even more colorful in his praise:

“Think of Lois Lane meets Wonder Woman. Athletic, obsessively dedicated to getting the story…. It may be politically incorrect to say this, but it is true, and in the strange little world of journalists who cover conflicts, the best compliment one can pay – she’s one ballsy lady.”

To be sure, Kimberly is very smart, nervy, determined, conscientious, brilliant with a phrase, and best of all “independent” of the banal and simplistic, of pre-canned agendas. Dan Rather wonders why she hasn’t yet gotten “full credit for her ability and guts.” I rather suspect its been precisely because she’s stayed “independent” of the standard fearful biases and lobby pressures that infected so much of the “pack journalism” mainstream media after 9/11 – including CBS.

Even CBS anchor Dan Rather, on September 19, 2003, followed one of Kimberly’s early reports on how ordinary Iraqis were facing an “extraordinary surge of crime, banditry and thuggery” with a nasty wrap to his own reporter: “A reminder that television sometimes has trouble with perspective, so you may want to note that in some areas of Iraq, things are peaceful.”

Think too of once omnipresent CBS analyst Fuoad Ajami and his infamous predictions of how easy liberating Iraq would be and of the hero’s welcome Americans would get.

It was Kimberly Dozier who at least was there, in harm’s way, with the courage and independence to provide the unpleasant reality check – long before it was fashionable or politically expedient to do so. In my view then, Kimberly Dozier stands out for best exemplifying the “speak truth to power” principles of famed CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow.
Here at Virginia, Abdulaziz Sachedina, Frances Myers Ball Professor of Religious Studies, gives us his own extraordinary tribute about his former student. Over the years, Kimberly had contacted him from her posts overseas, and had urged other reporters to do so as well to check the accuracy of their analyses. Taking to heart a lesson from Professor Sachedina’s seminar on Islamic Fundamentalism, Kimberly embodies a practical antidote to the “representational discourse conducted by those in power about those, ‘absent others,’ who threatened their hold on such absolute power:”

“Extremely conscientious in reporting events, both from Cairo and then Baghdad, Kimberly knew the risks and was aware of the distortions that could creep into reporting about the ‘Other’ – more particularly if it was a Muslim ‘other,’ from far away. This prompted her to be an ‘eye-witness’ reporter in the true sense of the word… She is indeed an exemplary journalist defying the typical stereotyping of the biased media in this country.”

I too value Kimberly Dozier’s work for its compassion, its empathy, – its human touch. No, I’ve never seen Kimberly allow herself an “Anderson Cooper moment” on camera – even as we now choke up badly at the thought of Kimberly hurt and in distress. Yet consider one of the last reports Kimberly filed from Iraq on April 27th for CBS’s “The Early Show,” anchored by Hanna Storm:

Thank you indeed Kimberly.
From your Virginia Cavalier friends, mentors, and admirers, we send you our best wishes, hopes, and prayers. Wahoo-wa! Murrow is proud of you; we are too. Heal well.
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And a personal note: Kimberly, when I first heard of your injury, I knew I needed to “lay hands” on your thesis. But I could not find it with the other M.A. theses in the bowels of Alderman Library. I thought maybe it had been lost in a recent flood, or maybe some journalist had beaten me to it. After searching in vain, it dawned on me to check to see if your thesis had been shelved in the wrong location. It had – over with the Ph.D. dissertations. Come to think of it; No error there. May you continue to teach us all.