In the 2020 memoir, On All Fronts, CNN’s chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, exhibits her perseverance throughout frustrating experiences that make her doubt her work. As a teenager, Clarissa Ward expresses her desire to help people: “I can understand people and convey their ideas. I’m a communicator” (p. 25). The desire to understand people and facilitate communication intensifies following the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, while Clarissa attends college. In the wake of the attacks, she relates: “I knew I had to go to the front lines, to hear the stories of people who lived there and tell them to the people back home” (p. 24). Clarissa Ward enters the field of journalism as a young adult, and during her career, travels around the world to listen to people and share their stories with the public. In her memoir, Clarissa Ward illustrates her persistence, despite recurring feelings of guilt regarding what she perceives as her emotional, material, and journalistic shortcomings.

Emotional Support

Ward regularly meets ordinary people in crisis situations, which brings her into highly emotional times in their lives. During the Syrian uprising against president Bashar al-Assad, Ward speaks to a Syrian man as he grieves the death of his son, a shooting victim of Bashar al-Assad’s security force. Ward recalls her meeting with the mourning father: “I watched his hands, fidgeting constantly with fear and grief. I wanted to take them in mine and hold them, to put down the camera for a minute and be a human being. But I knew the only way I could help him was to make sure that people heard his story. I prompted him to keep going…” (p. 5). Ward speaks with the Syrian father at an tremendously painful time in his life, and her instinct tells her to console the man. She decides that she is more helpful if she shares the man’s pain with the world, and she chooses to continue the difficult interview. At other times in Syria, Ward simply can’t find the right way to express herself. She explains her farewell to a group of heroic Syrian medics that she comes to know: “We said our goodbyes to Bulbul and the others, and I felt the familiar pang that came with wanting to be able to give them a big hug and tell them how remarkable I thought they were. But custom and my limited Arabic skills only permitted me to hold my hand to my heart and thank them effusively” (p. 213). Ward mentions the inappropriateness of physical contact and her insufficient language ability as reasons why she feels dissatisfied at their parting. Perhaps, though, no gestures or words can ever properly communicate feelings of awe and respect - even between people from a similar culture and language background. In Yemen, Ward visits a woman named Soumaya and her severely malnourished five-year-old son, Ahmed Helmi. At that time, Ward is not only unable to offer any comfort, she becomes upset herself. Ward remembers: “[Ahmed] looked up at me briefly and I was suddenly seized by a wrenching sob. Soumaya put her hand on my arm. I was ashamed that she was comforting me when her son was dying” (p. 296). Throughout her reporting, Clarissa Ward struggles as she obtains people’s stories while unable to offer much consolation in return.

Tangible Help

Most people Ward encounters need practical assistance, which she usually cannot provide. In Iraq around 2005, Ward takes Arabic lessons with a man named Hakim. The father of four children, Hakim eventually asks Clarissa if she can help him get his family to a safer country. Clarissa shares, “It was a question I would be asked dozens and dozens of times as a reporter working in some of the most dangerous places in the world. And it would not get any easier to answer. There was always the burn of shame ” (p. 52). As a dual citizen - an American and British passport holder - Ward travels with relative ease around the world. Her own privilege, however, does not allow her to share that privilege with the others she meets. When desperate people such as Hakim ask her for help, she struggles with the reality that a man’s nationality can so greatly dictate his life. One Syrian friend, Mohammed, asks Ward to answer for an entire nation when he presses her on the lack of aid from the United States. Ward recalls Mohammed’s questions: “Why did America do nothing to save the Syrian people, he asked angrily, while the Russians and Iranians were helping the regime to kill them?” (p. 255). With Muhammed, Ward seems to bear not only personal responsibility, but national responsibility as well. Frustrated, Mohammed demands that Ward explain her country’s inaction. Even when she does have the power to help, however, Ward explains her position as a reporter: “Strictly speaking, you’re not supposed to give money or charity to interview subjects because it can look as though you’re paying someone to tell their story and that can potentially affect what they tell you” (p. 284). Ward understands that many of the people she meets need paperwork, supplies, or money and generally, she is not the person to supply that material support.

Journalistic Effect

Instead of emotional or tangible support, Ward tries to focus on the help that she actually can offer, which is to share people’s stories with the rest of the world. What Ward can do is draw attention to human suffering and amplify voices in need. However, doubts about her work as a reporter creep into her mind as well. She wants to convey the true natures of the people she meets, but fears that she does not do these people justice: “There were so many small acts of kindness by sincere people that would never make it onto the evening news. These were the things that moved me to the core…” (p. 265). Real people - what they endure, overcome, and the goodness they exhibit in difficult circumstances - impress her. She knows that her face to face contact with people helps her understand them better, while consumers of the news around the world only obtain select words, images, or videos. She doubts that she captures and shares the most compelling glimpse of the people she gets to know. She also worries, “Outside of the media bubble, would the pieces have any meaningful impact?…Perhaps, in the great majority of American households, the tragedy of Syria was a momentary distraction before the trash was put out and the kids were told to finish their homework” (p. 170). She wonders if her reporting can actually affect people’s perspectives and actions. She may bring important stories to American homes, but what if her stories about the plight of some families remain simply too unrelatable for others? She feels that she needs to do more. At one time, she thinks: “Intellectually, I knew that I couldn’t do a damn thing to change the situation in Syria anyway, no matter how many risks I was willing to take. And yet I could not shake this oppressive feeling that I was failing, that I wasn’t doing enough, that I was letting people down” (p. 269). One feeling she has is of futility. She laments her own limitations, that she cannot solve an entire country’s problems. However, she also feels personally inadequate. The combination of these feelings is crushing.

In her memoir, Clarissa Ward shares her insecurities regarding her positive impact as a journalist. Ward often meets people in crisis, and struggles to leave them while they continue to suffer emotionally, or continue to need some tangible relief. She questions whether her reporting creates a greater good. The suspicion that her words and actions are never enough discourages Ward. She persists in her work, however, because: “…there is a shared human experience, no matter how different our societies, that connects us. Perhaps this is why I continue to feel such passion for my work, notwithstanding the frustrations and limitations” (p. 313). Despite the challenges, Ward finds enough motivation from her deep-seated compassion for others. Regardless of how satisfying the outcomes, she consistently chooses to listen and share the voices of others.

References

Ward, C. (2020). On all fronts: The education of a journalist. Penguin Books.