[Logic]

OK, I cannot give you a link about this since I saw it on Icelandic television but here it goes. I'll try to translate it as accurate as possible.

OK, since for some reason Iceland is in the coalition of the willing the Washington Post thought they should interview our ambassador in the States. The reporter was asking about this and that but one thing was of "interest". The reporter asked, seriously, if Iceland would commit any troops to the invasion! Our ambassador laughed his head of and answered of course no. Then he went on; We don't have any armed forces. The last armed forces were back in the 1300, and that were vikings with spears and swords.

OK, the question I have to ask. Shouldn't a reporter at least try to do a backround check before interviewing someone? And do americans in general know this little about their "friends" in the coalition of the willing?

No this is not a flamebait, but I really want to know what you think about this.


p.s. From now on I will take any views coming from the Washington Post, not with a grain of salt but a truckload of salt.

[clarkgoble]

*I* think they should. But most reporters are talking heads with relatively little academic background. A lot of times they are simply assigned to do something and don't prepare questions that well.

But I should say that I am surprised at the answer. I thought Iceland worked the way Sweden and Norway did with regards to military service.

BTW - if Iceland had not military or militia, how did it deal with Swedish imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries?

----

Never mind. It looks like it was de facto under Danish control until the beginning of the 20th century.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1025288.stm

Still, I'm surprised they had no military. Isn't *some* military required for NATO membership?

[Logic]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
*I* think they should. But most reporters are talking heads with relatively little academic background. A lot of times they are simply assigned to do something and don't prepare questions that well.

But I should say that I am surprised at the answer. I thought Iceland worked the way Sweden and Norway did with regards to military service.

BTW - if Iceland had not military or militia, how did it deal with Swedish imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries?

----

Never mind. It looks like it was de facto under Danish control until the beginning of the 20th century.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1025288.stm

Still, I'm surprised they had no military. Isn't *some* military required for NATO membership?

True, we were under Danish control since a long time ago. I can't remember since when but a long time.

But on the armed forces. No, we have never had a government controlled military and never really needed one. It is only since the WWII there has been military here on the island. UK first, then US troops. Who invaded us in WWII. Not that I'm complaining that they did, if the Nazis would have controlled Iceland the chance of opening a western front would be close to impossible.

There is no military requirements for being a member of NATO, at least not in those times. Iceland is/was very strategically positioned in the Northern Atlantic making it possible to track any submarines, naval ships and aircraft coming from the east(read USSR). We contributed in other ways to NATO, we control the airspace wich is most often used for flights between North American and Europe. We took care of most of the civilian work needed on the Base(Keflav�k airbase). And nowadays we commit civilians to NATO peacekeeping in Kosovo.

But it striked me as very odd that a reporter from a big newspaper didn't know any of this before asking the ambassador. I hope that isn't the case in general in american press.

ps. I know that some americans and Europeans think we still live in igloos, have no electricity and etc. The ignorance.

[MPC]

Originally posted by Logic:
ps. I know that some americans and Europeans think we still live in igloos, have no electricity and etc. The ignorance.

I thought hamsters powered bjorks turntables.

[Logic]

Originally posted by MPC:
I thought hamsters powered bjorks turntables.

I thought that was polarbears, but you learn while you live.

[dencamp]

Depending on the reporter, it could be tongue-in-cheek. Many of the countries of the willing fall into the catagory of no or minimal military forces.

[Lerkfish]

I know a great many reporters.
Like most populations of any profession, you have a bell curve of intelligence. Some very, very smart, some very, very dumb. I won't defend the dumb ones, but I will attempt to explain part of the problem (in newspapers).

A reporter covers ANY story. Everything from the latest cloning techniques to a kitten stuck in a tree. They can't be experts on EVERYTHING. This is usually why in the US historically reporters were given "beats", which meant that they concentrated on one area, so that they became intimately familiar with the topic, or at least enough to know which experts to consult. That's back when newspapers were fully staffed.
Nowadays, newspaper owners have become either very greedy or very draconian about their bottom line. We have skeleton crews compared to decades ago. As a result, papers rarely have "beat" reporters, which used to be their staple. Now, nearly all reporters are general assignment, which means they rarely spend enough time on any one topic to specialize. As a result, they do a great deal of acting like tape recorders pointed at interviewees rather than researchers armed with intelligent questions. That's sad, but inevitable. Even the reporters hate this.

Now, broadcast media is even MORE so on that, because their reporters are hired more for their telegenic properties than their intelligence or (gasp) research abilities.
For the most part, that doesn't come up or get highlighted as often because interviewees are usually more than willing to fill in the knowledge gaps, and tv reporters usually are wise enought to ask open ended questions (which the reporter in your example did not). If you ask very open-ended questions, you allow the expertise of the interviewee to come across. The best reporters or interviewers are nearly invisible but are adept at drawing out the best responses by how they phrase questions, rather than by leading subjects.


That reporter was obviously dumb, but if he'd been a little more clever about it, it wouldn't have mattered.

But, yes, sadly, as an information graphic artist (the stereotype is of artists being stupid) I can often think rings around most reporters now...which was not the case when I first entered the business. Back then, the reporters were hopeless curmudgeons, but by god they knew their stuff.

[beb]

Most newspaper reporters ask hardball questions. It's usually the tv reporters that ask softball questions.