American reporters, like Jill Carroll, in Iraq [View All]

[marylanddem]

This war is so unlike the reporting we saw on Vietnam - where every night we were faced with the images of death and bombings till it became unbearable - and I think that reporting was what catalyzed the anti-war movement.
But with Iraq, and reporters for whatever reasons not on the actual "battlefields" (not that most of this conflict involves actual "battles") or at the scenes of these IED attacks (obviously can't be there till after the thing has gone off) we are immunized from the horrific images.
I wonder what people think the role of reporters in Iraq should be? I mean, if these people can't cover the actual war, what should they be covering? Should they be covering the intricacies of internal politicking, as Carroll was apparently doing, or trying to do, when kidnapped? I don't exactly know what I'm driving at - but I feel that there is something really bizarre about the situation of the so-called "green zone" and these sterilized reports...I am also concerned that the Christian Science Monitor would allow a young freelance reporter to endanger herself like that in order to get whatever is passing for "news" from there these days. As a sometime freelancer myself, I realize how hungry freelancers can be and wonder if the paper's regular reporters are similarly endangering themselves? I hope Jill Carroll's editors/publishers are held properly responsible if she becomes another fatality...