How much of Bushs Iraq can now be covered by Western journalists?
Approximately 2 percent, according to New York Times journalist Dexter Filkins, now back from Baghdad on a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Filkins claims that “98 percent of Iraq, and even most of Baghdad, has now become ‘off-limits’ for Western journalists.” There are, he says, many situations in Iraq “even too dangerous for Iraqi reporters to report on.” (Such journalists, working for Western news outlets, “live in constant fear of their association with the newspaper being exposed, which could cost them their lives. ‘Most of the Iraqis who work for us don’t even tell their families that they work for us,’ said Filkins.”) How many journalists and “media support workers” have died in Iraq this year? Twenty journalists and six media support workers. The first to die in 2006 was Mahmoud Za’al, a 35-year-old correspondent for Baghdad TV, covering an assault by Sunni insurgents on two U.S.-held buildings in Ramadi, capital of al-Anbar province on Jan. 25. He was reportedly first
