Taking risks to capture 'the truth'
Father and son will cover wars in Iraq, Afghanistan for 15 months
OU graduate and son will cover wars in Iraq, Afghanistan
By Bryan Dean
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Published: July 14, 2008
Truth through risk.
Mike Boettcher chose that slogan for his news venture knowing the risks he and his son will face over the next 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan.Multimedia
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Mike Boettcher, right, and his son, Carlos Boettcher, are headed to Iraq, where they will produce blogs and video stories from the front lines.
Teaching a class from the front
Mike Boettcher, a University of Oklahoma graduate, pitched an idea to President David Boren — he wanted to teach a journalism class from the front lines in Iraq.
Boettcher said Boren was receptive, as were administrators at OU's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Students will communicate with Boettcher via teleconference for the class, which will be offered jointly through OU's journalism college and the international studies department.
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A better way
Risk is not a new concept for Mike Boettcher. While covering the Iraq war in 2005, Boettcher was thrown from his hotel bed when two suicide bombers targeted the Baghdad hotel complex where he and other media members were staying.
Still, the risks he faced paled in comparison to the soldiers whose stories he was trying to tell. Boettcher found it difficult to tell the real stories of the soldiers.
"I think you can only do that if you share the same risks,” Boettcher said.
"I became discouraged that not one network or major news media was embedded full time with our soldiers. There was sporadic coverage of what they were doing, usually when something went wrong.”
His role model for the idea is Ernie Pyle, the Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II correspondent who traveled with the men on the front lines and wrote stories from their perspective instead of focusing on generals and politicians.
Pyle died on an island off Okinawa while taking cover from machine gun fire in a ditch with American soldiers.
Boettcher wanted to apply Pyle's legacy and style to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sharing a vision
Carlos Boettcher never envisioned following in his father's footsteps.
Born in South Africa while his father covered apartheid, Carlos traveled the world throughout his childhood but never gave thought to becoming a journalist. He is majoring in foreign relations at George Washington University.
In January his father started talking about going to Iraq.
"He kind of floated the idea past me of maybe being involved stateside,” Carlos Boettcher said. "The more I thought about it, I realized that I kind of wanted to go over there with him and do reporting and tell the truth.”
Carlos Boettcher doesn't consider himself a journalist. That's his dad's thing. But he shares his vision.
Mike Boettcher said he couldn't refuse when his son asked to participate.
"I wasn't much older than him when I first went into war zones,” Mike Boettcher said. "And as Carlos pointed out to me, the men and women we will be covering, most of them are younger than he is.”
When the Boettchers arrive in Iraq, they will begin posting on their Web site, Noignoring
.com, which currently has only a YouTube link to a Mike Boettcher video. The site will feature blogs, video logs and more traditionally edited video stories like those Mike Boettcher is used to producing for major networks.
Boettcher will offer the video stories to any television station or media outlet that wants to air them, asking only that they tell viewers about his Web site. He is paying for the project through advertisements on his Web site. Donations at the site will go to veterans' organizations.
He stresses that the project is nonpartisan and will be an unbiased look at the war through the eyes of the men and women fighting it.
"I'm telling the story of the soldier,” Boettcher said. "I want to capture the heart and soul and mind of a U.S. soldier. ... That story has to be told.”
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