American Flag Blog

Back when I was in journalism school (it’s hard to believe, isn’t it?), there were only a few well-defined types of news writing. Among them were "hard news" and "human interest" stories. Hard news was a straight news story devoid of opinion or bias - just the facts laid out in a logical format. Then there was the human interest story, also known as feature writing, which injected the author’s particular world-view into the story.

Even back then, it was plain that feature stories were gradually crowding out hard news stories on the front page of most newpapers. Nowadays, you can pick up any major newspaper on any day and you will be hard-pressed to find a genuine hard news story. Newspapers now exist to persuade, not to report the news.

Enter the case of young Farris Hassan who was just returned to his Florida home from Baghdad by the U.S. military. I briefly caught this on TV this morning and was intrigued when the camera panned Hassan’s bedroom. He had two hand-held type flags sticking out of a lampshade. One was the American flag and one was the Confederate flag. The American flag makes sense but why would the son of two Iraqi immigrants have a Confederate flag in his room?

Young Hassan is a highly intelligent 16-year-old high school student who has been studying the latest brand of feature writing - "immersion journalism." The idea behind immersion journalism is to live like the subject of your story lives - to get inside their head. That way, you can write from the subject’s perspective. Of course, it’s a bunch of hogwash. It’s something akin to the Hollywood folks eating beans at a fundraiser for the homeless so they can know what it feels like to be homeless.

In Hassan’s case, he took the subject matter a little too seriously. In order to know what’s really going on in Iraq, he decided he would have to go there himself. He skipped a week of school and left without permission from his parents, leaving them only a note. Through a little resourcefulness, a little luck and a lot of determination, Hassan eventually made it to Baghdad and discovered that it is really a dangerous place if you’re an American. There are still plenty of bad guys who would like nothing better than to get hold of another American.

Fortunately for Hassan, after a couple of days in Baghdad, he contacted the Associated Press, presumably with the notion of volunteering his services. The AP contacted the U.S. Embassy who sent soldiers to pick him up and Hassan was on his way back home. So at this point, you might think, "oh what a stupid kid!" Well, stupid he is not. Maybe a little idealistic and naive, but he understands what this war is about and what’s at stake much better than most Americans.

Here’s what he said in an emailed essay sent to his school while in Kuwait: “There is a struggle in Iraq between good and
evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving
for death and destruction. Those
terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted,
decent individuals must answer justice’s call for help. Unfortunately,
altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside
the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and
risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will.”

Then upon returning, in an interview, Hassan indicated his appreciation of what it means to be an American, “When you go back home you have such a new appreciation for all the
blessing you have there, and I’m just going to be, like, ecstatic for
life.”

I doubt my curiosity about Hassan’s Confederate flag will ever be satisfied, but I have learned something else - that Farris Hassan has a good heart and a lot of guts and that’s not a bad way to start on the adventurous road of life.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 30th, 2005 at 3:26 pm and is filed under The American Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.