The World’s Most Dangerous Paper Route is a 2019 documentary about the ‘Stars And Stripes’ military newspaper delivered to soldiers around the world.
For a publication designed for a very specific readership, the independent news source Stars and Stripes, an outlet for the United States military, has become one of the most recognized names in the information game. The paper can trace its roots back to the US Civil War though gained its proper footing in World War I and continues today providing American Armed Forces with unbiased reporting of national and international events all around the world, now with a strong presence online. In director Matthew Hausle‘s latest documentary, The World’s Most Dangerous Paper Route, we get an in-depth look at the history of the paper and several of its more well-known writers while eventually shifting focus to one of the publications’ most challenging current delivery routes, the men and women serving in Afghanistan.
I’m willing to bet that most of you reading this haven’t actually picked up a daily newspaper to get your morning intake in a long time (if at all). Yet in countries like Afghanistan, where large areas have either no or very limited internet access, paper in hand is often the only way to get information. Here, the Stars and Stripes faces a number of seemingly insurmountable hurdles, including the loss of those reporting the stories, in getting the news delivered, making sure soldiers – in both peace and war – get the latest from around the globe.
Telling this story allows the filmmakers great opportunity to track where this kind of journalism built its legacy, with narrator – and veteran newsman – Steve Kroft leading us along an inspiring path of history where we meet people who brought the truth to the world about battles from Vietnam to conflicts in the Middle East and more (there’s a cool little segment about the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics). These are often harrowing and deeply moving explorations of what it means to be embedded in a fight armed only with a camera, shedding light on the personalities who tell these stories.
In fact, we spend a lot of time with former writer and correspondent Laura Rauch, who spent time with Stars and Stripes reporting on the fight in Afghanistan in 2011, embedded with infantry units. She details the backstory of a number of reported and featured articles and images posted in her name, often moved by the recollection in remembering the ferocity of the fighting but more so the dignity and courage of the people she covered, sometimes as we learn, becoming part of the story. It’s moments like these that pepper the entire production of The World’s Most Dangerous Paper Route, giving the film its greatest power. I’ve always been fascinated by people like Rauch, who struggled to keep humanity the focus of something so inhumane, giving face to a conflict that can so easily become only a statistic.
We also briefly meet more reporters who had impact on the paper and the news in general, including Kroft and others who peel back the romanticism of propagandized war coverage. They tell of memories that defined their careers and the significance of being part of real history. While we do meet a few people who actually distribute the paper in Afghanistan, the film is more about the need for and impact of the publication in that area and to other military bases around the world. For many, it is a taste of home, a pinnacle of stability and a sign of enduring freedom, its presence in mess halls and barracks as important as the flag itself. A small but endearing release, The World’s Most Dangerous Paper Route may not be entirely what the name seems to promise, but is nonetheless a surprise all its own, giving breadth and greater meaning to a name that for many around world holds great personal meaning.