User:Crtew/Kim Barker (journalist)

Kim Barker is an American journalist most known for her book, The Taliban Shuffle. Born in 1971, her love of writing and adventure was passed onto her from her parents. From then, she became a metro reporter at The Seattle Times and later at the Chicago Tribune. She currently works as an investigative reporter for the New York Times. Her passion for her work is what drove her to cover the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan which led to her book that has now been turned into the movie, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Personal
Barker grew up in Montana raised by liberal parents. Her father was an architect, and mother was a nurse. They raised her without "gender expectations" so she became comfortable being a tomboy. However, she was a very frightened child, partly due to the incomprehensibility of what happens when people die. She was raised without religion. These outlooks helped in shaping her career. She saw All the President's Men when she was young, and it inspired her to become a journalist.

Career
Barker started her print journalism career as a metro reporter for the Seattle Times from 1999-2000. She later worked for the Chicago Tribune. After 9/11, Barker wanted to go to New York to cover the attack. Instead, her bosses assigned her to research gas prices in Chicago. She always tried to push her work outside of her comfort zone. The work she was doing was not challenging her as a journalist. In 2003, however, she heard a rumor that the paper was interested in trying out more female foreign correspondents, since the majority had been male. That's when she volunteered herself. When she applied she stated, "I have no kids and no husband, so I am expendable."

She received the job as the South Asia bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune and was based in New Delhi and Islamabad. One of her assignments was to cover the earthquake that hit Southeastern Iran, killing nearly 26,000 people. Between 2004 and 2009, Barker covered the war in Afghanistan and unrest in Pakistan. She covered the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the paper. Barker covered the war with help from an Afghan translator, Farouq. At first, serious stories were in high demand. Later, she delivered less personally satisfying stories like the delivery of pizza to the Illinois National Guard in Afghanistan on Super Bowl Sunday.

In 2009, the Chicago Tribune called Barker back to Chicago, moving her back to the metro desk. Yet, she was not ready to leave Afghanistan. She interviewed at Amnesty International and considered going into consulting, but she was not done with journalism. Four months after turning down the Chicago Tribune job, she moved to New York to start a press fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations. She ran into some bumps though. Life in America was no longer what she was used to. Barker struggled coming back from a war zone like so many others before her. Because of this, she went to one session with a therapist. Then, she decided writing about it would be better therapy, and she got a job reporting on campaign finance for ProPublica. She felt that the job would help her ease back into life in the US. Barker even stated that the transition completely calmed her down.

She quit journalism to write about her experiences in Asia in her 2011 memoir The Taliban Shuffle. According to Barker, the book itself took seven months of writing, two months of procrastinating, and five months of editing. The book caught the attention of chief book critic, Michiko Kakutani, who wrote a glowing review in March 2011 describing Barker as a sort of Tina Fey character. Kakutani said that the book manages to be hilarious and harrowing, witty and illuminating all at once. Tina Fey got her hands on the book due to the review and pushed for the making of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, the film version of the book. It was a hit. The film, and the book, examines the Middle East and its political turmoil through a comedic perspective, using dark humor to illuminate the absurdity of the situation along with Barker's personal struggle for growth. Barker used her book as a dark comedy about the war on terror.

Most recently, she has been a member of the special investigative team on the New York Times metro desk, where she has written "gritty straight" reporting. She has come back to where her true passion lies.

Notable works of journalism
Barker wrote many notable works of journalism. She has written about the assassination of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the deadly tsunami of 2004, and she has conducted interviews with warlords and members of the Taliban.

Her most trying moment while reporting was in the aftermath of the bombing at Benazir Bhutto's homecoming in Karachi in 2007. More than 140 people died. The police had invited her into the crime scene and showed her the head of the bomber. There was an overwhelming amount of death that night that still bothers Barker to this day.

Barker's most notable work is her novel, The Taliban Shuffle.

Context
For Barker, being a woman gave her the opportunity to go overseas. However, her sex led to other troubles along the way. Female war correspondents were often dismissed as a class and mythologized as individuals along with there appearances. Women were officially banned from the front lines during WWII, but that did not stop ground breakers like Martha Gellhorn. When the Vietnam conflict started more women started reporting in the field due to a loophole- the US never officially declared war.

War is not glamorous; it is not style; ultimately, what a woman wears could preserve her life. Hostile environment training courses teach women to pay attention to their wardrobe, but they do not cover all regions, according to award winning journalist May Jeong. Women at risk for kidnapping are advised to bring a fake wedding ring and baby pictures to create empathy with kidnappers.

Safety for women is not the only concern. There is unequal treatment in the industry. Female foreign correspondents receive fewer awards or prizes for there work. "The organization has awarded prizes to 19 men but only to four women," Christina Asquith, writer for The Atlantic reveals.

Barker, herself dealt with several instances of harassment not unlike other female foreign correspondents. She was pinched and harassed so often in crowds that she was once offered shelter in the car of the chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry. She was even pinched and prodded at Benazir Bhutto's funeral. "I was just angry," Barker admits, "I write about what happened in a very funny way, but whenever I was grabbed it wasn't funny at all. And as a foreign woman, I had it easy. Local women suffered much worse. And they could rarely do anything about it."

If there is one thing that Barker would like to convey the most through her book, it's that not every narrative written by a woman has to be about going overseas trying to find oneself and finding a man.

There also tend to be misconceptions about Barker as a writer. Many people, especially Americans, do not understand Barker's use of humor on such a serious matter. However, Tina Fey explains that the line between great journalism and great comedy is less bright than one might think. The mark of both a great comedian and a great journalist is that they find something to say that is true but that no one has noticed yet. Barker stated that people in America think that people who are suffering through such horrible experiences lose most of their humanity, but most people use humor to get through these things.

Impact
Barker brings attention to tough political tragedies that most people want to ignore. She brings a passion to her work that is inspirational. Barker's goals for her book, and film, was to promote young women to become foreign correspondents or any strong characters they want to be. Her message for young women was for them to follow their dreams and to know that not everything has to end in finding a man. Primarily, Barker wanted people to look into what was happening in Afghanistan and talk about policy there, and to actively talk about strategy. She did not want those countries to be forgotten, and she hoped that her book, and the film, called more attention to it.

Awards
Barker received the Front Page Award for Journalist of the Year from the Newswomen's Club of New York 2015. She is also a Lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.