By Ansel Herz, with Crossover Dreams in the Huff­in­g­ton Post

Actor Sean Penn, who is help­ing man­age a camp of dis­placed earth­quake vic­tims in Haiti, is mak­ing pointed crit­i­cisms of jour­nal­ists for drop­ping the ball on cov­er­age of Haiti. He’s wrong. I’ve been on the ground in Port-au-Prince work­ing as an inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist for the past ten months. I’m an earth­quake sur­vivor who’s seen the big-time reporters come and go. They’re doing such a stel­lar job and I want to help out, so I’ve writ­ten this handy guide for when they come back on the one-year anniver­sary of the Jan­u­ary quake!

For starters, always use the phrase ‘the poor­est coun­try in the West­ern hemi­sphere.’ Your audi­ence must be reminded again of Haiti’s excep­tional poverty. It’s doubt­ful that other arti­cles have men­tioned this fact.

You are struck by the ‘resilience’ of the Hait­ian peo­ple. They will sur­vive no mat­ter how poor they are. They are stoic, they rarely com­plain, and so they are admirable. The best poor per­son is one who suf­fers qui­etly. A two-sentence quote about their mis­ery fit­ting neatly into your story is all that’s needed.

On your last visit you became enchanted with Haiti. You are in love with its col­or­ful cul­ture and feel com­pelled to return. You care so much about these hard-working peo­ple. You are here to help them. You are their voice. They can­not speak for themselves.

Don’t lis­ten if the Haitians speak loudly or become unruly. You might be in dan­ger, get out of there. Protests are not to be taken seri­ously. The par­tic­i­pants were prob­a­bly all paid to be there. All Hait­ian politi­cians are cor­rupt or incom­pe­tent. Find a for­eign author­ity on Haiti to talk in stern terms about how they must shape up or cede power to incor­rupt­ible outsiders.

The US Embassy and United Nations always issue warn­ings that demon­stra­tions are secu­rity threats. It is all social unrest. If pro­test­ers are beaten, gassed, or shot at by UN peace­keep­ers, they prob­a­bly deserved it for get­ting out of con­trol. Do not inves­ti­gate their con­stant claims of being abused.

It was so vio­lent right after the Jan­u­ary 2010 earth­quake. ‘Loot­ers’ fought over goods ‘stolen’ from col­lapsed stores. Escaped pris­on­ers were caus­ing may­hem. It wasn’t nec­es­sary to be clear about how many peo­ple were actu­ally hurt or died in fight­ing. The point is that it was scary.

Now many of those loot­ers are ‘squat­ters’ in ‘squalid’ camps. Their tent cities are ‘teem­ing’ with peo­ple, like anthills. You saw your col­leagues use these words over and over in their reports, so you should too. You do not have time to check a the­saurus before deadline.

Point out that Port-au-Prince is over­crowded. Do not men­tion large empty plots of green land around the city. Of course, it is not pos­si­ble to explain that occu­py­ing US Marines forcibly ini­ti­ated Haiti’s shift from dis­trib­uted, rural growth to cen­tral­ized gov­er­nance in the cap­i­tal city. It will not fit within your word count. Besides, it is ancient history.

If you must men­tion Haiti’s his­tory, refer vaguely to Haiti’s long line of power-hungry, cor­rupt rulers. The ‘iron-fisted’ Duva­liers, for exam­ple. Don’t men­tion 35 years of US sup­port for that dic­ta­tor­ship. The slave revolt on which Haiti was founded was ‘bloody’ and ‘bru­tal.’ These words do not apply to mod­ern Amer­i­can offen­sives in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today, Cite Soleil is the most dan­ger­ous slum in the world. There is no need to back up this claim with evi­dence. It is ‘sprawl­ing.’ Again, there’s no time for the the­saurus. Talk about ruth­less gangs, bul­let holes, pigs and trash. Filth every­where. Des­per­ate peo­ple are eat­ing cook­ies made of dirt and mud! That always grabs the reader’s attention.

Stick close to your hired secu­rity or embed your­self with UN troops. You can’t walk out on your own to pro­file gen­er­ous, reg­u­lar folk liv­ing in tight-knit neigh­bor­hoods. They are help­less vic­tims, grab­bing what­ever aid they can. You haven’t seen them calmly divid­ing food amongst them­selves, even though it’s com­mon practice.

Bet­ter to report on groups that peri­od­i­cally enter from out­side to deliver food to starv­ing kids (take pho­tos!). Don’t talk to the youth of Cite Soleil about how proud they are of where they come from. Prob­a­bly gang mem­bers. Almost every­one here sup­ports ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide. But their views aren’t rel­e­vant. There is no need to bring pol­i­tics into your story.

You can’t for­get to do another story about restaveks. Child slaves. It’s so shock­ing. There is lit­tle new infor­ma­tion about restaveks, so just recy­cle old sta­tis­tics. Present it as a uniquely Hait­ian phe­nom­e­non. Enslaved Hait­ian farm­work­ers in south­ern Florida, for exam­ple, aren’t nearly as interesting.

When you come back here in six months, there will still be a lot of des­per­ate poor peo­ple who have received lit­tle to no help. There are many big, inef­fi­cient for­eign NGOs in Haiti. Clearly some­thing is wrong. Breath­less out­rage is the appro­pri­ate tone.

But do not try to get to the bot­tom of the issue. Be sure to men­tion that aid work­ers are doing the best they can. Their pos­i­tive inten­tions mat­ter more than the results. Don’t name names of indi­vid­u­als or groups who are per­form­ing poorly. Reports about food stocks sit­ting idly in indi­vid­ual ware­houses are good. Inves­ti­ga­tions into why NGOs are fail­ing to effect progress in Haiti are bor­ing and too dif­fi­cult. Do not explore Haitian-led alter­na­tives to for­eign devel­op­ment schemes. There are none. Basi­cally, don’t do any report­ing that could change the system.

On the other hand, every­one here loves Bill Clin­ton and Wyclef Jean. There are no dis­sent­ing views on this point. Never mind that nei­ther lives here. Never mind that Clin­ton admit­ted to destroy­ing Haiti’s domes­tic rice econ­omy in the ‘90s. Never mind that Jean’s orga­ni­za­tion has repeat­edly mis­man­aged relief funds. That’s all in the past. They rep­re­sent Haiti’s best hope for the future. Their voices mat­ter, which means the media must pay close atten­tion to them, which means their voices mat­ter, which means the media must …

Finally, when you visit Haiti again: Stay in the same expen­sive hotels. Don’t live close to the peo­ple. Pro­duce lots of sto­ries and make money. Pull up in your rented SUV to a camp of peo­ple who lost their homes, still liv­ing under the wind and rain. Step out into the mud with your water­proof boots. Fresh notepad in hand. That ragged-looking woman is yelling at you that she needs help, not another for­eigner tak­ing her photo. Her 3-year-old boy is stand­ing there, cling­ing to her leg. Her arms are raised, mouth agape, and you can’t under­stand her because you don’t speak Hait­ian Creole.

Remove the lens cap and snap away. And when you’ve cap­tured enough of Haiti’s drama, fly away back home.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/crossover-dreams/a-guide-for-american-jour_b_656689.html