World: On Lara Logan and journalists who do difficult, dangerous work
- Lara Logan was one of many attacked last week. But all of them are just as awful. The CBS reporter, well-known for her international coverage, was attacked on Friday, as the Mubarak regime fell, in a brutal sexual assault that had to be stopped by a large group of women and a number of soldiers. A few have used the opportunity to crudely attack Logan’s politics, which is the lowest of the low. We’re going to use this opportunity, instead, to point out the dangers that journalists faced in covering the Egypt story. Anderson Cooper got punched in the freaking head, yes, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg, really:
- 52 journalists were attacked during the three-week long ordeal (including Fox News reporter Greg Palkot)
- 76 journalists were arrested, some from the Washington Post, New York Times and al-Jazeera source
- » And one journalist died during the crisis: According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a watchdog group, three journalists have died in Egypt since 1992. One of them, Ahmad Mohamed Mahmoud, a journalist for the state-owned newspaper Al-Ta’awun, died February 4 from gunshot wounds sustained while attempting to shoot video of security forces and demonstrators fighting. Security forces noticed him, and a sniper shot and killed him. “They meant to kill him; they aimed at his head with live ammunition,” said his wife, Inas Abdel-Alim. “The perpetrator did this to him because he was filming what was happening. They didn’t want us to cover the massacre that happened that day.” And as awful as this all is, it pales in comparison to what journalists faced in nearby Iraq. Journalists do difficult work. Bloggers? We type into laptops. The biggest danger we face is spilling a macchiato on our hands while fervently typing. Don’t forget who does the real work.