“Journalists are fair game”

Terry Anderson, the Associated Press war correspondent held hostage in Lebanon for six years during the 1980’s, speaks out about the present day safety situation for journalists,

“[Iraq] is the most dangerous war that journalists have ever covered, by far,” Anderson said. “Eighty percent of the murders of journalists around the world are never investigated. No one is ever arrested. No one is ever convicted. Journalists are fair game in many places around the world, because … dictators and oppressors always go for the press first. Always.” link

Anderson also co-chairs, along with former CBS-TV news anchor Walter Cronkite, the Committee to Protect Journalists. Since March 2003, 125 journalists and 49 media workers have been killed in Iraq — most of them Arabs, Iraqis and Syrians working for Western news agencies.