Amber

Getting the News From Iraq

March 23, 2006 | Middle East, bias, iraq, islamism, islamofascism, media, media bias, war on terror

I forget who it was who replied, in answer to something I said about journalists being more afraid to miss their evening cocktails than getting killed in Iraq, that 64 journlists have died in Iraq…indicating that journalists were risking their lives in Iraq to get stories.

I did some searching, and came up with some interesting statistics, with regards to the numbers of journalists in Iraq who have been killed there:

By Nationality:
� Iraqi: 48
� European: 9
� Other Arab countries: 3
� United States: 2
� All other countries: 5

Type of news organization:
� Working for international news organization: 34
� Working for Iraqi news organization: 33

Highest death tolls among news organization:
� Iraq Media Network (includes Al-Iraqiya, its affiliates, and Sabah newspaper): 9
� Al-Arabiya: 6
� Reuters: 4
� Kurdistan TV 4

http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/Iraq/Iraq_danger.html

First, the vast majority of journalists killed in Iraq were Iraqis. Half of those killed were working for Iraqi news organizations…only two American journalists have been killed.

Which sort of goes to make my original point. Not that I want anyone killed, mind you, but they aren’t aggressively going out, either, to find out what is going on.

Further…the good news is NOT what is happening in combat. One does not necessarily have to risk one’s life to do a story on schools being built, or Iraqis being helped…in fact, it might be a lot safer.