American Reporter Killed in Iraq

As reported by AP, Steven Vincent was the independent journalist whose piece from Basra had appeared in the Times only days before. That piece, which I linked to, mentioned his having been embedded with British forces, but apparently that was more the exception for him than the rule.

(His blog, with a link to his book, are here.)

While I have repeatedly pushed for reporters to get out of Baghdad, I have also repeatedly said two other things: first, if they can't, they can't -- no story is worth their life. More important that they safe (as long as what they are doing to produce stories under those circumstances are made transparent to us, and they aren't making claims about all of Iraq based on Baghdad. And, second, if they can't report safely on their own, I don't understand why they don't take more advantage of opportunities to embed. The typical answer is that this would mean they'd only see one side of the story, but if the alternative is seeing no side of the story, I don't get the huge harm.)

In any event this is a sobering reminder that one need not endorse the quality of the product at all times to respect the willingness of the reporters, editors and producers to go to Iraq and make the attempt. As I have also repeatedly said, the people I feel worst for are the folks who voluntarily leave friends, family, comfort and saftey to report the story, then get no air time no matter what they have to say because some teenager has gone missing or some aging celebrity might be a pedophile.