Perhaps there is a completely innocent explanation for this. http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/04/13/publiceye/entry1496366.shtml
I think that fair and accurate journalism requires the journalist to be someone detached from either side. You're never going to get an accurate portrayal of events from an "embedded reporter", because that will more often than not be a reflection of that specific POV. I understand and appreciate the difficulties associated with reporting from the battlefield, but I think we need more impartiality in the media.
In some ways, she's worse. Coulter makes me laugh, she's so ludicrous. Malkin doesn't even manage that. Keep D&D Civil.
I was quoting a CBS News blog. Surely you guys love CBS News, what with memo-gate and all that. The curious thing is the the AP can't account for Hussein's whereabouts.
So apparently one person was detained, and released because they didn't have evidence. Why should that make us suspicious? Now someone else is missing in a dangerous war zone. That might be sad and tragic, but doesn't seem all that odd. Malkin is playing to people's prejudcies, and fears. Shame on her.
I just read the piece, but it resonates of even-handedness... At this point, it's impossible to know Bilal Hussein's relationship to the people he was photographing. Maybe they wanted images they considered to be propaganda to be disseminated, so they gave access to the photographer, even though they had nothing in common ideologically. Maybe they considered him their ideological brother, and he pledged his allegiance to their cause. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between. This is speculation on what could be the situational truth. This paragraph cites it is impossible to know very clearly, and ranges a favorable, and a unfavorable situation as possibilities...This is clearly even-handedness.
The story was actually instigated by Bilal Hussein's behavior, for which there might be an innocent explanation, though I have yet to see one. It also raises a broader question for Western media outlets who might be using local stringers sympathetic to the insurgents.
What behavior? Taking pictures? If the events are happening, a photo-journalist ought to take pictures. If those pictures hurt the cause of someone in those pictures, then it is the responsibility of the parties involved to change their behavior. He can't take pictures of things that aren't happening.
Some folks think that he's more than a neutral observer and that some of the pictures might be staged.
are you saying iraq is not really in a brink of a civil war? I think it will be easier and cheaper to photochop pics than to stage scenes.. if someone is faking stuff it won't be a photographer..
I don't know what the deal is with this guy, but many, many photographers have gone into situations where death was more than a remote possibility. Take Robert Capa, probably the greatest of all war photographers. Here's a famous photo from the Spanish Civil War... And here are his only surviving photos from D-Day, where he went ashore on Omaha Beach armed with two cameras... He was killed in Indonesia when he stepped on a mine.
And by the way, critics of Capa claimed that the falling soldier picture was staged... it was eventually proved authentic.