Lara Logan assaulted in Egypt

What would you rather have on your conscience: a couple ignorant jackasses calling you sexist, or knowing you sent someone for which you are responsible into a situation in which they were attacked and raped?

 

By this thinking, we should never send white reporters into black neighborhoods or vice versa because....(you know).
Logan's been in sketchier situations than this covering Iraq and Afghanistan - is Logan being attacked worse than Anderson Cooper being attacked? Or Bob Woodruff or Kimberly Dozier nearly dying in Iraq? Someone not affiliated with the media?
Hell, the attack is horrible, but this is what journos do. They get out and talk to people. Reporters die every year doing the job, most don't have a national profile, but they do what they do because that is the job. I'd be surprised if Logan thought any differently.

 

She's CBS's Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent. No one 'put' her in that assignment, she earned the right to be there, and I can't imagine anyone in her position refusing to be there, or agreeing to stay away. And if you really believe it's too dangerous for a woman, it should also be too dangerous for a man, and then you're making a different decision about what's really important, journalism versus safety. When you take that job, you're making a very big decision about your life.

But at that level, calling it a 'job' really trivializes what she and any of those correspondents do. It seems almost miraculous that a famous American journalist hasn't been snatched and murdered for attention, for headlines. Did you notice how many of the signs in Cairo were scrawled in English? That's for our benefit, for our media attention.

 

Really?

 

I don't think that should be ignored in the name of journalism. If that make me less of a journalist, so be it. Risk and reward should be weighed.

 

Unfortunately, you don't know how bad it is until it's bad; this certainly wasn't the first violent mob to be covered by droves of reporters.

I just think it's dangerous to make this a 'female' issue; the same mob could have left Brian Williams in a coma or killed a cameraman.

 

I'm not talking about the nature of the attack, just the fact that they were attacked. They are both journos there doing their jobs.
Hell - I agree that what happened to Logan was worse, especially since she has a kid and a family - but I don't understand the idea that because a female journalist was attacked, they should be treated differently than what happens after a male journalist is attacked.

 

As you said, now that something like this happened, things will likely change, but it may be change specifically directed instead of change that takes into account the larger question of safety vs. journalism without regard to gender.

 

There was a pretty big difference in the severity of those attacks. She was sexually assaulted and beaten for a lengthy period of time. Whatever happened to Cooper, he was able to continue reporting, although he did so from a distance.

 

Logan is a board member on the Committee to Protect Journalists, which tracks murders of journalists around the world and pushes for press freedom.

http://www.cpj.org/

 

An NYU professor got I. Some HILARIOUS jokes about this. But it's all good because she was on McChrystal's side against the Rolling Stone reporter, after all.

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/259833/appalling-reaction-outrageous-crime

A few other blogs also went the humor route.

http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2011/02/15/lara-logan-assault/

Class all around.

 

Wanna read a horrible reaction to this? Check out this practically jubilant blogger celebrating the attack because Logan "knew the risks." It gets worse.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/33031/how-muslims-celebrate-victory-egypts-peaceful-moderate-democratic-protesters/

Is this bitch human? Jesus Christ.