Friends, Colleagues, Whoever Finds This Note in a Bottle,

After 40 years as a reporter on seven continents, my latest book, Escaping Plato's Cave, is a cri de coeur based on a central point: What we don't know is killing us. The subtitle, hardly hyperbole, is "How America's Blindness to the Rest of the World Threatens our Survival."

Bedrock news organizations are more vital to our security than armed forces and as crucial to democracy as fair elections. Yet they are being bought up, dumbed down, and stripped of the ability to see reality beyond our borders.

The Web is a terrific delivery system but without actual up-close reporting by professionals whose credibility we can assess, its "coverage" is no more than guesswork based on flawed assumptions. Rather than attack a "mainstream media," we need to fix its weaknesses while finding other ways to see reality.

Iraq is only one example of how we go wrong. We commit terracide on a planet that is fast growing uninhabitable. We won't see that reducing poverty and killer diseases are not charity but rather our own self-interest. We outsource not only jobs but also basic principles. Corporations we own and patronize by free choice are making us obsolete as individuals. We do not teach our kids to think critically, and we elect people who protect contributors over constituents.

For those who don't know me, I reported for the Associated Press since 1967 in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America, and Europe, covering a lot of peaceful stuff but also several dozen wars starting with Congo and Vietnam. I left AP in 2004; that's a long story told briefly in the book, but writing on the wall was clear when I tried to quote warnings from wise old Saigon sources as U.S. troops amassed to invade Iraq under their own flag. My Washington-focused editor told me: "We believe it's too early to talk about Vietnam."

Freed of a day job, I've resolved to put my experience to work. My first priority is to help a fresh generation to see the world with an open mind. Societies are far more similar than they are different. Hardware varies, but human software is the same. All people want dignity, safety for their kids, enough to eat, the most basic of health care, water. Few of these goals can be delivered at gunpoint. We need to understand this.

Why do they hate us? Most people don't. But many of them no longer respect us; they seek leadership elsewhere. Too many of those who once admired Americans now see us as self-deluded, self-indulgent bullies who refuse to realize they share an imperiled planet with 6.7 billion other people. Of course, America is not responsible for all the world's problems. But, whether we like it not, we are the best-placed nation to rally others towards workable solutions.

I am no expert in any particular field. Like any lifelong reporter, however, I'm an expert in experts. I've spent three years talking to people to frame the vital questions. It is up to all of us, urgently and collectively, to find the answers.



After the book launches at the Overseas Press Club in New York on Oct. 10, I'll to go Tufts University where I've helped run workshops for the noble Institute for Global Leadership in Kosovo, Argentina, and Kashmir. I'll speak to universities and public-interest groups. We are organizing open Save the World Forums to collect ideas to be posted on www.escapingplatoscave.com. (For starters, the Mercury Café in Denver on Oct. 28; Zingerman's in Ann Arbor on Nov. 1; Janos Restaurant in Tucson on Nov. 3).

Some early readers have been kind. James Hoge, editor of Foreign Affairs, wrote: "A great foreign correspondent draws on forty years of travels and experiences to paint a vivid picture of how America is falling short of its highest values and crippling its global leadership." Paul Theroux called it "passionate, timely, and original, a book every American should read."

Others, doubtless, will be less enthusiastic. ESCAPING PLATO'S CAVE is a screed. Names are named, and events are recounted from old notebooks with much of the heat that accompanied the moment.

With your help, we can do a lot. I'll be in Tucson this winter where I teach international reporting at the University of Arizona, and I'll travel from there for presentations. I will soon co-edit DISPATCHES, a quarterly (eventually a monthly) to cover crucial issues in telling detail but also broader context.

Should PLATO earn royalties, I will contribute half of them to programs that teach young reporters the skills, and responsibilities, of covering the world.

If you have any comments, or want to join our circle of amateur world-savers, we'd appreciate it. Write to mort@mortrosenblum.net or amber.maitland@gmail.com. Please start by forwarding this memo to whoever might be interested (no bad luck will befall you if you don't).

With many thanks,
Mort Rosenblum