Surprise find in Baghdad

Somewhat startling news that Lee Abrams, chief innovation officer at the Tribune company, is surprised to find the Tribune group – which includes some 11 newspapers and various broadcast outlets – has a reporter in Iraq for the LA Times. In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic he wonders why the paper doesn’t make more of it

Why were you surprised to find out that your company has reporters based in Iraq?
I was in Los Angeles, sitting in this casual little meeting waiting for someone to show up, and there was this lady who had just got back from four years in Iraq, I forgot her name, I met 300 people in two days, and she was telling me about security problems, bullets in the background and all that, and it really struck me that there should be pictures of her with Iraqi children in the newspaper to show she was there. Whereas in the newspaper, it just says, “Times Staff Reporter.” I really never thought about it, that there was really a person over there going through hell to get this.
It didn’t strike you that there were employees of the newspaper over there doing this work?
It was just ink to me, just reading. Oh yeah, here’s what’s happening in Iraq, but then I didn’t feel the human side. link via PJ Net