42 Journalists Killed During Iraq War

[DuctapeFatwa]

Killings of journalists surged to an eight-year high in 2003, with many of the 42 victims being gunned down, bombed or caught in crossfire during the Iraq war, a media advocacy group said Tuesday.
Last year's total was the highest since 49 journalists died in 1995 a time when reporters in Algeria were targeted in an Islamic insurgency, Reporters Without Borders said in its annual report.

The Paris-based group blamed U.S. armed forces for the deaths of at least five journalists, adding that "in no case did they (the military) hold any investigation worthy of that name."

In 2002, the group counted 25 journalists who were killed.

Meanwhile, arrests of journalists and censorship of the media rose to a record high last year,...at least 501 media outlets were censored, up from 389 in 2002, while at least 766 journalists were arrested compared with 692 a year earlier. At least 1,460 journalists were physically attacked or threatened, 40 more than the previous year.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040106_1283.html

[NV1962]

1. Yup - but one correction in the title...

Posted a bit earlier (elsewhere) on today's release by RSF of last year's grizly results... Including a few salient bit.

It was in GD though - here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=989329

However - one correction: your topic title is not a correct quote from the ABC News piece, which (correctly) says 42 killed during 2003 - not "just" the Iraq war.

Either way, 2003 was an atrocious year - whichever way you look at it.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. That is the title on the url in the link, as per the rules

I would probably have used the title that you suggested, but the rules require that the title be pasted exactly from the source url.

[NV1962]

5. You're absolutely right - my apologies

Just saw it... Wow - what a whopper.

And the error is clearly AP's:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040106/ap_on_re_eu/france_journalists_killed_1

But coming from AP it doesn't surprise me that much - their "foreign-based news" staff is less than stellar. Must be hell to serve in one of those horrible outposts, like Paris!

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. Well this is the "raw copy" link. which WE tend to like and use

but most people just wait a day, or three, or twelve, until it gets cleaned up, moussed and spun for Wolf n Aaron ;)

I see corrections and deletions, and horrific grammatical errors come in all the time, there will probably be one for this one, if anyone else picks it up

[PartyPooper]

3. Too many lives wasted because of Bu$hco.

There was no justification for this "war" in Iraq.

[populistmom]

4. I guess that'll keep 'em in line

It will keep many from asking too many questions anyway.

[lebkuchen]

7. BBC pieced together its film footage of being attacked by a US F 14

BBC had an earlier version of the attack, called in by the SF, whom the BBC journalists were with. The latest film has more footage and information, for those who might have access to BBC. It's very informative, except for the parts about the DoD being unwilling to provide the BBC with information about what went wrong.