The Difficulties Involved in Reporting from Iraq

Editor & Publisher has a great piece about Ellen Knickmeyer, an amazing journalist who risked her life to write about what's happening in Iraq. It's so easy for conservatives and the pro-war crowd to criticize journalists for reporting the negative, which is all there is at the moment. I laugh when Hannity, O'Reilly, Malkin, etc... go to Iraq to "report" from the Green Zone. Real reporters are risking their lives to tell the real story:

"To do your story well, you have to go out," she asserts. "IEDs are one of the risks in doing this. If you're riding around in an armored vehicle, you'll probably die quickly, if there's any consolation in that."

She recalls that when she first went into Baghdad in 2003, she interviewed a Shiite family of seven sisters, dressed in their sweatsuits. "The first thing they wanted to know was what plans the Americans had for starting up the degree exams in the universities," she says. "They were so sure the Americans would take care of that, and of course all the looting was going on at that time, and the Americans had not prepared at all. When I tried to follow up this year, the family refused to talk to me. The neighbors told me the girls don't go to school any more, they don't work. When they go out, they're completely covered, even gloves."