It is about People!
Interesting post by Margaret Friedenauer, an embedded reporter in Iraq: Reporting from Iraq » Blog Archive » The view from on the ground
Iraq is a real place, and is populated with real people. These people have conversations, transactions, and interactions every day with our soldiers. Our soldiers are often making friends with these locals, and have real relationships with them. The quantity and quality of these relationships are likely the real story in Iraq. When you watch the nightly news, you hear the bodycount update, but rarely do you get to see the real story.
The real story is almost always embedded in people and relationships. When you report about a crime, a fire, a crash, or a war, it is quite sterile and empty if you don't get a glimpse into the human impact of the story.
In life this is true as well. If you sell somebody a good or service, the actual product is basically a commodity. They likely can get your product or service from any number of people. What provides the flavor of life is the relationships tht are built between people.
How many stories do we miss when we simplify the story down to a metric of some type?
