People had a lot to say about Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. They were pissed that it romanticized war reporting, and that it used white actors to portray two Afghan characters. I personally think it was Tina Fey doing what she does best, and the very talented Kim Barker providing insight into her one, single, don’t-try-this-at-home personal journey.

What I’m more concerned about, though, is that few critics took a closer look at the actual world of war reporting or foreign correspondence. One that is in desperate need of diversity and context — both of which live far outside of the expat world and embassy parties.

The most enlightening scene in WTF was when Barker (portrayed by Fey) walked into a village in rural Afghanistan with a bunch of Marines to find out why the local well, built by Americans, was repeatedly destroyed.

An Afghan woman quietly calls her in to a dark house where there is a group of her friends waiting. They remove their veils and tell her that it is not the Taliban bombing the village well, but this group of housewives, because trips to fetch water are the only time they have to socialize outside.

This detail had cost the American armed forces plenty of money, and probably threatened plenty of lives, including Barker’s. But it’s one that a reporter with a deeper understanding, and maybe experience, of that region would have known to ask, or at least explore, beforehand.

I don’t have enough authority to speak as a foreign correspondent — my 1.5 years in India fall too short. But as a journalist, and a woman of color with roots in a country so pathetically portrayed in Western media, it worries me that the dispatches we rely on to shape public opinion about the world are still created under such a limited lens.

Thanks to Fey and Barker, we know a little bit more about why that happens.