I intended to post this yesterday after listening to Laura Ingraham recount how she "kicked the hornet's nest". But I never got to it. Today I heard something on Hannity that reminded me about the issue.

Ingraham took the press to task for its negative slant on Iraq, and doing most of its "reporting" from "their balconies" inside the International (Green) Zone. This of course sent many of the usual suspects into apoplectic fits, and generated an interesting defense.



In response to this challenge, I have heard a few times (once from Chris Matthews) the meme that "she can't say that! Over 80 reporters have died covering the war." As if that gives them license to report only bad news....

Now at first this might sound like a somewhat convincing argument, but as with most knee-jerk arguments from liberals it is designed to make opponents feel guilty for raising the issue, and a little bit of research reveals them to be so much hot air.

Have many "Journalists" been killed in Iraq? I suppose it depends on how you define "Journalist", but it is true that many people in the employ of news organizations have died in Iraq. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that the number of "Journalists killed on Duty" is 67. No matter how you slice it, that is a lot.

So what is the problem you might ask? Well Ingraham, and conservatives in general, are criticizing American journalism for its shortcomings. The defenders of American journalism turn around and say that they should not be criticized, since many journalists have died in Iraq. Most of the time that seems to shut people up (see 'guilt' above). But it does beg a follow up question.....How many of those journalists were actually American?

CPJ breaks out the numbers for us:
By Nationality:

* Iraqi: 48

* European: 9

* Other Arab countries: 3

* United States: 2

* All other countries: 5

So....nearly 3/4 of all journalist deaths in Iraq since 2003 have been Iraqis? One can reasonably assume that many of those were locals acting as stringers for various news organizations. And as one remembers the criticism is that American journalists are sitting on their balconies, and reporting the uncorroborated information that these stringers bring back to them. But how do the deaths of foreign journalists qualify as a defense of the shortcomings of American Journalism?? In short, it doesn't. It is extremely disingenuous. Add to that, conservative complaints are not about the stringers who are dying, but really about the producers and talking heads working from their secure hotel accommodations.

So to quote numbers of Journalist deaths to defend lazy American Journalism practices is bogus. No small irony that it is that same lazy American journalism is sending those foreign stringers out to their fates. To me that is a worse indictment of the argument. The only 2 Americans listed to have died are presumably David Bloom and Michael Kelly. Lets be realistic here, neither of them, God bless their souls, died as the result of violence. There are examples of brave journalists (Bloom, Kelly, Woodruff, Yon, all the embeds...), who will go out and face what the troops do on a daily basis, but those are the exception to the rule. But since the end of the war, and the majority of embeds went away, most of the "reporting" consumed by the American public, comes from within the International (Green) Zone.