For our journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will be work as usual over the next two weeks, with the added stories of American and other foreign troops marking Christmas amid the conflicts. As every year, well have reporters, photographers and camera crews covering Christmas at the Vatican and Midnight Mass in Bethlehem, along with New Years Eve celebrations in Times Square, New York, Sydney Harbour, Trafalgar Square in London and most of the places where crowds gather to see in another year. Many of our financial reporters will also be on duty covering the worlds markets, even though trading volumes will be down.

December 29 sees the start of the haj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca which is expected to draw 1.5 million Muslims from around the world to Saudi Arabia. Past years have witnessed deadly stampedes and political protests and we will have full coverage from a multimedia team.

Staff will also be hard at work in Europe, with Romania and Bulgaria joining the European Union on Jan. 1 and Slovenia adopting the euro as its currency on the same day. In Nairobi, our journalists will all be staying on base because of the conflict in Somalia since we anchor that story from our East Africa operations centre in the Kenyan capital.

Unexpected news never takes a holiday, which is why many newsrooms will have weekend-level staffing at this time of the year and other journalists will be on call.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979. Romanias dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown on December 22, 1989 in the year communism collapsed in Eastern Europe. Three years ago, an earthquake killed 31,000 people in southeastern Iran on December 26, 2003, devastating the city of Bam. The Asian tsunami struck on December 26 2004, killing 230,000 people in a dozen countries. Violence in Iraq was the biggest story over the holiday season in 2005/2006 but it was generally quieter elsewhere than in previous years.

Lets all hope that this year is even quieter everywhere.

Best wishes to all from the journalists of Reuters.

Paul Holmes, Editor, Political & General News

Image shows Palestinians at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony outside the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, December 15, 2006. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun

Answers from photographer Ahmad Masood

To Canon Fodder, who asks for some tricks of the trade in going from amateur to professional photographer:

Thank you for the nice compliment.
I think the best way to learn how to take a picture is to take a picture. This worked out for me fine!
 
To Sara, who asks about the status of women journalists in Afghanistan:

I think in a way it may come as surprise to many people that women journalists are more privileged than men in Afghanistan. (Though of course, not in areas hit by the Taliban insurgency). The fact that they are women earns them a lot of respect; they get better access, they are treated better and they dont report from behind veils.

To Jonathan Gordon, who wonders if Masood misses writing:

I did try to write and take photographs for a while but I realized my progress with writing in English, which is not my native language, was slow. I could see the results of my progress with photography more quickly, so I dont miss the writing. I am confident I can also be successful outside Afghanistan and I am looking forward to taking photos in a different environment when I am in India. I think it will help my development.

Answers from Senior Correspondent Sayed Salahuddin

To Craig, who asks what is was like to report under the Taliban:

The Taliban officially imposed a total ban on filming and taking pictures of any living objects, because they regarded it as un-Islamic. But a number of Taliban officials were not opposed to it and they allowed filming, especially when it suited their purpose. Despite the ban, we tried our best to take pictures. This sometimes led to brief detention and we had to get our office involved to obtain our release. In all my experience, though, the Taliban never censored what the international media would run and did not dictate or impose their will on the coverage.

To Arizona, who asks about the differences between rural and urban Afghanistan:

For as long as I can remember, there has been a cultural schism between people living in rural and urban areas in Afghanistan. This division is largely based on traditional and ethnic issues, which generally have nothing to do with Islam. My feeling is that some people in the rural areas want to get moving and want to change but there are also people who want to maintain the traditions and cultural way of life that has existed for centuries.

The clash will be around, I believe, for some time to come as Afghanistan is going through an unprecedented period of freedom. My feeling is that even in urban areas, such as the capital, Kabul, there are people who oppose some of the freedoms that have come about since Taliban’s ouster. Since the government is weak and regarded as Western-leaning, it is treading cautiously for obvious reasons, especially given the intensification of Taliban’s attacks.

To Patrick, who asks whether there is an open trade in narcotics on the streets of Kabul:

The Afghan drugs trade is mostly aimed at export. There are some underground networks that sell narcotics but it is not a street type of business.

To Dinesh, who asks whether being Afghan affects my reporting, and to joehancl, who wants to know if the media can manipulate public opinion:

I think the media can play a really positive role in helping to resolve the world’s woes. The media can help stop wars between civilizations, religions and states. It can also stir them. We should try our best to work to end the dangers, regardless of who we are, which religion or ethnic group we belong to or who is our president, who is the world’s super Any media network can play it either way, but people will judge us at the end of the day and we should abide by our principles of neutrality if we want to be trustworthy and last long.

Answers from Chief Correspondent Terry Friel

To Sara on women journalists in Afghanistan:

Women journalists, mainly young, are playing a strong role in the new and vibrant Afghan media. There are plenty of Western women working here, too, many as senior journalists. They enjoy the same access as their male colleagues. Women journalists are more readily accepted into female areas of Afghan life and, especially in rural areas, it can be hard for men to talk to local women for a story. But it varies. In last years election, our male journalists were welcomed into girls schools and womens political meetings where veils and burqas were taken off.
 
To Arizona, who asks about nightlife in Kabul:

Our team works long, hard hours, often without days off, so we socialize a lot within the house and compound we have some great dancers in the crew! In summer, people take their families on picnics and visit their home provinces. There are cinemas. VCDs, DVDs and music CDs are very popular — especially from Iran and India. In summer, people go out at night and its the season for huge and lavish weddings. In a lot of places, you can see young boys playing football (soccer) or cricket on any open patch of land. There are also plenty of restaurants, from fancy food to basic kebab stalls lit by tube lights. But its winter now; we had our first real snowfall this weekend, so people mainly stay home at night.

Paul Holmes adds:

Some of the comments and questions concerned our coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a former Reuters Bureau Chief in Jerusalem, I have long been of the view that it is difficult to report this conflict without being criticized at various times by one or other of the parties (and sometimes both). I can assure you that we do not just employ Palestinians or even a majority of Palestinians. Our operation is pretty evenly split between Israelis and Palestinians, with expatriate journalists in the mix as well. I will try to address some of these issues in a posting when I next visit the Middle East.

Finally, Chuck Harris asks whether you need to be rabidly anti-American to work for Reuters. The answer is No. You need to be a good journalist.

Paul Holmes is Reuters Global Editor for General and Political News

The Reuters office is a house in a relatively upscale neighborhood of Kabul with bedrooms where foreign journalists sleep during their stay. When I first stepped through the front gates of the compound five years ago I entered a world of controlled chaos.

All of us, writers and photographers, worked, ate and socialized in a single room on the second floor. It was cramped, thick with smoke from all the cigarettes and stuffy from the wood burning stove that jutted into the room. Evenings were spent under curfew in the same room, often huddled around a laptop watching a DVD. The best we could get on the television was a snowy image of Afghan TV. The sound would fade in and out, often during news broadcasts.

The food was, to say the least, basic. Please get them to stop serving us cauliflower all the time. Were fed up with it, one of my colleagues pleaded when I arrived to help bring some order to an operation that had exploded almost overnight from a single correspondent under the Taliban to about a dozen journalists. The only way to file photographs and news stories was over satellite phone. I later learned that one of the monthly phone bills hit $150,000.

The house is still the same, the faces familiar. But five years have brought a world of difference to working conditions. Gas heaters have replaced the wood burning stoves and the office has moved down a floor into three rooms. The house even has wi-fi. Sat phones still come in useful on reporting trips outside Kabul but the days of mega phone bills have gone. So has the cauliflower. The old cook is still here but he now works as the gatekeeper. We have a new cook who makes superb potato chips. But were still using generators for most of our electrical power a sign of how little basic infrastructure in Kabul has developed since 2001.

The familiar faces mean continuity in the newsroom, now run by Chief Correspondent Terry Friel, an Australian who moved here from New Delhi in August. its good to see that Afghan journalists are taking leadership roles. I wanted to say a little about two of them — Ahmad Masood and Sayed Salahuddin.

Many fine journalists are accidents of history; individuals who turn to this craft unexpectedly when tumultuous events upset their hopes and dreams. Journalism is not something you need a diploma for, unlike the law, accountancy or medicine. The best way to learn is on the job, from people who know how to do it. Many try and fail. A fair few succeed and Ahmad Masood is one of them.

In late 2001, Masood was 21 and living in the town of Jab-al-Sarraj, a staging post for Northern Alliance forces in the Panjshir Valley. His dream had been to flee Afghanistan and join a brother in London. Then 9/11 happened. With excellent self-taught English, he offered himself as a fixer to foreign journalists converging on Jab-al-Sarraj for the war. His first job, earning $100 a day, was with a Reuters Television cameraman, then with a Reuters photographer and journalist Ros Russell. He accompanied them into Kabul on the heels of the Northern Alliance.

Hes the best by far. Use him, Ros told me when I inherited Masood from her. For four weeks we roamed Kabul and its surroundings, venturing as far as Bamiyan, the site of monumental ancient Buddhas carved into the rock face that the Taliban had blown to pieces earlier in 2001. Ros was right about Masood. He was an excellent interpreter, a skilled negotiator who could get you most places and an engaging guide to Afghan history and culture. He clearly had talent and for a while tried his hand at reporting and writing for Reuters.

Then, one day, he had to go north to the town of Mazar-i-Sharif on a story and there was no photographer to accompany him. So he took a small digital camera and the rest is history. Masood discovered he had a gift for news photography and after learning the ropes from experienced visiting staff photographers, he is a staff photographer himself, running our Afghan photos operation from Kabul. Last year, he helped cover the Kashmir earthquake. Next month he will go to India to work for several weeks and he hopes one day for an assignment abroad. Here’s a selection of Masoods photographs.

Sayed Salahuddin, known to everyone as Salah, is the backbone of the Reuters newsroom. He speaks and writes deliberate English, learned at Kabul University where he had dreamed of going abroad for postgraduate studies after earning a bachelors degree in modern languages and literature. It was not to be. The civil war intervened after the end of Soviet-backed rule in 1992 and Salah stayed on in Kabul putting his English to use in journalism. He joined Reuters full-time in 1996 after previously working for Reuters and the BBC. He was the only Reuters permanent correspondent in Afghanistan during the dark years of Taliban rule and one of only four journalists able to report from the country in the weeks leading up to the collapse of the Taliban and its flight from Kabul on the night of Nov 12, 2001.

Salah reported, shot video and took still photographs until the end of Taliban rule and is now the Senior Correspondent for Reuters, focusing on reporting. His wisdom, institutional knowledge and understanding of Afghan culture are fundamental to our operation.

Some journalists who have covered wars and other upheavals tend to like to talk about their experiences. Theres a certain bravado in some of them, a sort of Baghdad Bob attitude that can become tiresome. Salah, 36 and a father of three, is not one of those people. Hes extremely modest. In fact, when I worked with him back in 2001 it was only by chance, and with a lot of coaxing, that I learned just how perilous his work had been under the Taliban. The movement was highly suspicious of journalists, especially those working for foreign news organizations and Salah needed to tread warily.

The Talibans severe interpretation of Islam included a ban on images of the human form, which is bad news for a journalist trying to take photographs and video. I was amazed to learn from Salah that the crew of a Taliban armored personnel carrier rumbling through Kabul smashed into his car when he tried to photograph them in the dying days of Taliban rule. Salah had a lucky escape which he recalls in this interview on the road where the incident happened.

Paul Holmes is the Editor for Political & General News.

If you’d like to ask Paul, Masood or Salah anything about the realities of reporting from Afghanistan then please post a comment below before 3 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 3. Replies will be posted at the same time on Dec. 5.

JOURNALIST SAFETY

Q. 11 handicap wanted to know what it takes to ensure physical and emotional wellbeing in a war zone like Iraq. k.taylor asked how the families of our Iraqi journalists cope with the constant worry of whether they are safe.

A. News organizations like Reuters have taken security increasingly seriously in the past decade or so as reporting has become more dangerous. We train our journalists how to behave in hostile environments, using professional instructors who are usually former soldiers or policemen. Our foreign security advisers fulfill that role in Baghdad. You can never be entirely safe in a war zone. It goes with the territory. But we can take steps to mitigate the risks. Flak jackets and helmets are one way and in many places we use armored cars without press markings (which would make you a target of kidnappers here). In Iraq, other than in an embed with U.S. forces, body armor can also increase the risk because it makes you stand out. Keeping a low profile, limiting the amount of time you spend in one place, not getting too close to danger and knowing when to turn back are all ways to reduce risk. We constantly tell our staff that no story is worth a life but, tragically, four Reuters journalists have been killed in Iraq. Journalists used to be quite macho about covering wars, pretending they could take anything. We now know that is nonsense. Our managers are trained to recognize signs of traumatic stress and we encourage our journalists to talk about what they have witnessed whether to a colleague or a manager. Relaxation also helps. Our compound has a small gym so people can exercise, which is another aid to coping with stress. Its important as well to get time off. You can burn out covering wars and the emotional toll creeps up on you. Some trauma is normal when you are under great stress and seeing awful things. Its a coping mechanism. If the strains become too great, our journalists can speak confidentially to trained trauma counselors. The stress is far greater when you are covering a conflict in your own country than in someone elses. There is an emotional attachment and you have to worry about family and friends as well as your own safety. Most of our Iraqi staff live in Baghdad and travel to work each day, making sure they leave for home well before the 9 p.m. curfew. So they do see their families most days and cell phone service is pretty good. If youre interested in learning more about the emotional aspects of journalism, The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is a very good resource. The Committee to Protect Journalists has details on all the journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003 most of them Iraqis.

LIFE IN THE REUTERS COMPOUND

Q. Paul DeMartino wondered whether there were any non-journalists at our compound and how much security is provided by some external agency. Mike Arkus says I should put my money where my mouth is and hopes we pay all staff, regardless of nationality, an equal salary.

We have quite a large support staff. There are two cooks and a couple of office managers as well as drivers, technicians, cleaners and maintenance workers. We also have two huge, diesel-run generators in the garden. More than three years after the U.S.-led invasion, the public power supply is still intermittent in Baghdad and the generators kick in a lot. Our foreign security advisers come from a British-based company, one of several such companies whose services the media and other organizations retain to help them operate in danger zones. We also use a private Iraqi security company to provide armed guards at the checkpoints on our street and in our compound and living quarters. We dont have any security provided by the U.S. or British military. All we ask is that the military treat journalists like civilians and respect their right to gather news.

On pay, salaries for our Iraqi staff are not necessarily the same as those of the foreigners who come here. Cost of living, taxation rates and pay levels for local journalists working for domestic and other foreign media all influence the way we set salaries around the world. So even the foreigners we have here get differing amounts, depending on where they are based. I am confident our Iraqi colleagues get competitive, decent salaries. In many cases they are higher than elsewhere in Reuters, including in Europe, for journalists with similar levels of experience.

GATHERING THE NEWS

Q. Paul H. Lasky is eager to know whether we publish news from insurgents and vet journalists for links to terrorism. linda l sabourin asks whether the news Iraqis get is filtered by the U.S.-led coalition. Ben Lipstein wonders how often Reuters uses Iraqi news outlets as sources and which ones are the most credible. Nic is uncertain whether what he reads is propaganda or news and asks why there arent any images of dead soldiers. takoyaki” wants to know what non-American journalists think of U.S. media coverage of Iraq. Jed would love to see footage of planes making corkscrew dive landings at Baghdad airport but wonders whether filming them is censored.

A. Many of our Iraqi colleagues have a strong record of reliability built over many years with Reuters. As anywhere in the world, we are cautious with newer recruits and ask our longer-standing Arabic-speaking staff to assess them. We never run news from any source, except an official, named source, without checking it with other sources. Since our Bureau Chief cant travel with any real ease outside Baghdad, we encourage freelance reporters in Iraqs towns and cities to come to Reuters for training in our standards, including the principle that we do not take sides in any conflict or dispute. We drive that message home at every opportunity. Over time, we come to know whether people are reliable. If they arent, its goodbye. As for links with terrorism or the insurgency, we have no evidence that anyone working for Reuters is associated with any party to the conflict. Since we have come to know our staff very well over the years, we are confident of that.

Some of our Iraqi journalists have been detained by U.S. forces. They have all been released without charge and senior U.S. officers have told us there was no credible evidence against them. It is essential to cover all sides of a conflict and if you live in say, Falluja, it is part of your duty as a journalist to chronicle the reality. In Iraq, that reality includes armed men shooting at U.S. and Iraqi forces. We do report news from the insurgents and from al-Qaeda in Iraq. They are part of this conflict. Most of that material comes from statements posted on Islamist Web sites which we monitor, mainly in Dubai. Of course, some of the material sent our way is propaganda. All sides including the Americans and British will use information to try to sway hearts and minds and portray what they are doing in the best light. Its the job of journalists to be cautious so we dont become mouthpieces. I think we manage to avoid that trap pretty well at Reuters.

Iraqs media has expanded rapidly since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Newspapers tend to be affiliated with different political groupings. Several TV stations have also sprung up. We sometimes quote Iraqiya state television for official announcements. We also monitor it and other channels for interviews it conducts with government officials and political leaders but we do most newsgathering ourselves. The United States funds an Arabic broadcaster, Al Hurra and Iraqi journalists are establishing their own independent news agency, Aswat al-Iraq. In reality, though, much of the news in the Iraqi media is actually from the big international agencies like Reuters because we have the most extensive networks of journalists. Reuters has a respected news service in Arabic, which is a leading source of news in its own right across the Middle East. It has its own reporter in our Baghdad newsroom and also translates stories from English. The United States does not censor news published in Iraqi newspapers. In fact, most Iraqi journalists try not to be associated with the coalition after it emerged last year that an arm of the U.S. military was paying for good news stories. As for U.S. media coverage of the conflict, American journalists are among the last foreign reporters here and I would not question their integrity. If readers or viewers are unhappy with their reporting, newspapers and broadcasters have channels for complaint, like public editors and ombudsmen. U.S. newspapers are more cautious about publishing the images of dead soldiers or any other graphic or disturbing images than in some other countries. But I dont believe that is the main reason why there are so few photographs of dead American service personnel. We have had some such photographs at Reuters. But it is highly unlikely that a photographer will be present to capture such images. With fewer and fewer foreign journalists in Iraq as the dangers have grown, fewer photographers are going on embeds with American units. That spells practical limitations. New York Times columnist David Carr wrote an interesting think piece about this in June.

Finally we come to the corkscrew dive. I can testify that the anticipation is scarier than the reality. Its not that bad, even after an in-flight breakfast. Im not aware of any particular restrictions on filming aircraft in flight.

THE SITUATION IN IRAQ

Q. Nic Fulton asks how our Iraqi staff see things turning out and Jon Allan wants to know if the U.S. should leave the country. I mentioned in my blog that Iraqis, regardless of religious or ethnic background, feel able to mingle at Reuters without seeing each other as potentially hostile. That led Roelf Renkema to ask whether that meant such gatherings cannot happen elsewhere in Iraq. Stephen wants to know why people are allowed to carry assault rifles in Iraq.

A. Each household in Iraq is allowed to have one automatic rifle but people are not allowed to carry them in public. The fact that so many do reflects the deep instability in Iraq, a country awash with weapons and explosives, and the proliferation of militias, insurgents and armed groups. Like people everywhere, the vast majority of Iraqis want nothing more than to live their lives, educate their children and have access to jobs in an atmosphere of peace and security. Our staff are no different. Like all Iraqis, they have seen security deteriorate over the past three years. Two stories this week by my colleagues Ahmed Rasheed and Mustafa Mahmoud, illustrate just how difficult it has become to stay away from danger.

While they fear for the unity of Iraq, as with many Iraqis, the journalists Ive talked to hope that ultimately the country will stay together. There are many mixed marriages and mixed towns in Iraq, making an outright sectarian and ethnic partition impossible without forced population transfers. A surge in sectarian killings since February, when a Shiite Muslim shrine was bombed in the town of Samarra, has deepened suspicions and made it harder for Iraqis of different backgrounds to get together even though in mixed cities like Baghdad it was very much the norm for hundreds of years. That said, opinion polls suggest Iraqis want a united Iraq and are no different from Americans in wanting U.S. and other foreign troops to leave. Not right now, necessarily, but over the next year. An indication of Iraqi sentiment came in an opinion poll conducted by a policy group at the University of Maryland in late September. The survey found that most Iraqis believed the troops were provoking more conflict than they prevented.

REUTERS IS IT REALLY FREE FROM BIAS?

Q. Whodunit, Roy Hastings and Jim Patterson all challenge my statements that Reuters prides itself on fairness, accuracy and freedom from bias. Whodunit refers to an incident in August when a blog in the United States reported that a photograph of the aftermath of an Israeli air raid in Beirut had been altered using Photoshop software so that there appeared to be more smoke. Ben Lipstein also wants to know if we give our Iraqi photographers access to Photoshop.

First the Beirut incident. Reuters was pleased that the blogger, Charles Johnson, drew attention to the photograph. We welcome feedback from readers and critics, for better or worse, because it leads to more honest, more transparent journalism. The photographer who altered the image was a freelance and we ended our relationship with him within 18 hours of being alerted to the problem and withdrew the photo. The next day, when we found a second suspect photograph, we removed more than 900 of his photos from our sales database. The fact that the photograph got issued at all came down to human error in an operation that worldwide puts out around 1,500 photos a day. Weve since made our guidelines on Photoshop use much more explicit

Photoshop is a standard tool for photographers but it is how you use the software that counts. The rule of thumb in the news business is that you must not do more with Photoshop than you used to do in a darkroom in the days of 35mm film. Some of our Iraqi photographers do use Photoshop but only to crop their images, which is fine. Most send in untouched raw images. All the photos that leave Iraq are edited by a highly experienced Chief Photographer who works seven days a week during his rotation. That position is now held by a foreign photographer with 27 years experience.

I really wish I could convince the critics that Reuters really is committed to independence, integrity and freedom from bias. We are not out to make President Bush or anyone else look bad. Period. Nor are we out to make anyone look good or part of some vast media conspiracy. We simply try our very best, as all decent news services do, to present an accurate, balanced, fair news file. Sometimes we miss the mark. Were human. When we do, we correct our stories.

Id ask the critics to look at some of the other comments posted on the blog to understand how deeply divided public opinion is over Iraq. They might also be interested to know that there are plenty of instances here in Iraq when Reuters and individual journalists who work for us have been threatened, attacked, sometimes kidnapped and tortured, and accused of being agents variously of Zionism or America, British imperialists or apologists for global capitalism. Independent journalists often end up angering people on both sides at the same time. Its inevitable in war situations because conflicts arouse such passions. After all, people wouldnt be fighting if they agreed on the issues.

Do we deliberately ignore good news stories from Iraq? No we dont. Iraq, though, is a country where the U.N. estimates some 3,000 civilians are killed by violence each month a toll that equates roughly to 36,000 Americans a month as a proportion of the population. We cant always get to the good news stories anyway. Its usually too dangerous to take to the roads. But we do aim to reflect Iraq in all its realities as best we can. Here is a story my colleague Claudia Parsons wrote after spending 24 hours following the work of the medical staff of the Baghdad ER.

Paul Holmes, Editor, Political & General News

Our compound, protected by blast walls, razor wire, searchlights, armed Iraqi guards and British security advisers, is on the east bank of the Tigris across the river from the fortified Green Zone. Its the workplace for about 40 journalists. Only seven of them are non-Iraqis our British bureau chief, four correspondents who are Basque, British, Lebanese and South African, a Filipino chief photographer and a television producer who is Jordanian.

We have Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in our newsroom and all are aware of the Reuters reputation for fairness and accuracy and how they must help maintain it. Like Reuters journalists anywhere in the world, they leave their politics, ethnic roots and religion at home.

Several of our staff have been with Reuters since before the 2003 invasion when working for a foreign news agency meant the risk of falling foul of Saddam Husseins security men. Others joined us after the invasion. As in so many places where conflict convulses a country, some of our more recent colleagues are accidents of history who have switched to journalism when their world was turned upside down.

One of our reporters, a man with excellent English, is a lawyer. Another colleague is a bookseller who monitors Iraqi TV networks for news Reuters reporters can then check independently. Others used to be commercial photographers or videographers. Until three years ago they filmed weddings. Now they chronicle the carnage of everyday Iraq.

We train all our staff, regardless of nationality, both inside and outside Iraq. They all understand the Reuters principles of independence, integrity and freedom from bias. A team spirit means that, as they did on Saturday evening, they can sit and talk together while sharing a smoke from a hookah pipe without regarding each other as rivals across the deadly sectarian and ethnic divides that prevail in the world outside the compound.

All of them have tales of personal tragedy to tell — stories of the killings of loved ones and other sufferings that have afflicted Iraq since 2003. Im not going to name them because so many Iraqi journalists fear that divulging their identity amounts to a death sentence at the hands of insurgents or militias. As I am writing this on Sunday, an Iraqi woman who presents a sports show on Iraqi state television has just been found killed with her driver in their car.

One of our cameramen had to flee his home, postpone his wedding and move his extended family abroad after a sectarian militia ran him out of his neighborhood. Another of our journalists had to move to Baghdad, where he now lives in the Reuters compound, after insurgents shot dead his brother as part of a campaign to intimidate journalists into leaving the town of Mosul. Yet another got a phone call at work one day from his wife to tell him she was laying seriously wounded outside their home after a bomb went off. Two of his male relatives have been kidnapped and remain missing. One man is the brother of a Reuters TV soundman who was shot dead by U.S. forces on his way to report a story last year.

These are typical stories in todays Iraq. What is uncommon is the dedication that these journalists bring to covering the news for Reuters.

The foreigners rarely leave our compound, other than for a brief ride in an armored car to a news conference or interview in the Green Zone or to travel to and from the airport for their rotations in and out of Baghdad. They also make use of facilities such as U.S. military embeds and trips by Iraqi or foreign officials to get around the country when they can.

Its the same story for most foreign news services. The kidnapping of foreigners in Iraq may have gone down over the past year but that may in part be because far fewer of them brave the streets. By contrast, our Iraqi staff are out every day, rushing to the scene of attacks, recording the hardships of daily life and interviewing the Iraqi civilians on the receiving end of this conflict whose voice is never heard enough.

Every day when I come to Reuters, I feel proud to be here. Its important to help the world understand what is happening in my country, one of them told me. Reuters, I told him, was just as proud of him.

Paul Holmes is Reuters Global Editor for Political and General News. He’ll take reader comments to this post until 3 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday and plans to post a response at 3 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. 

Picture credit: A man walks past a vehicle damaged by a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad, Oct 28, 2006. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani