the Peninsula

Camille El Hassani lost 12 of her staff during her one year in Iraq.

One year.

Talk about downsizing.

You'd think journalism would be hard enough in Iraq, a country where free speech is persecuted on a daily basis, without the added fear of death looming over you. But there it is - 12 people.

Camille was born and raised in South Carolina - hardly a foreigner. Though her parents were Iraqi, she never planned to go into Middle Eastern journalism, and started off with ITN, went to Reuters, and finally ended up at ABC.

Then, after 6 years at ABC, she took a year off go to Iraq to train Iraqi journalists for a national Iraqi network, and when she came back to ABC, she was struck the dire state of the network - so she interviewed for a job at Al Jazeera English and has worked there since.

I couldn't believe that a she, a woman, had gone to Iraq to train a bureau of mostly men. If men here have a hard enough time accepting orders from women, can you even imagine what it would be like in Iraq? And at first, she admitted, they did have a problem with her teaching them, but once they figured out that she would be the one signing their paychecks, "they became real friendly, real fast."

I guess the most memorable thing about our talk with Camille today was the fact that despite all of our leading questions (How different is journalism in the Middle East? How often do you feel in danger? What are the challenges of being a woman? - goodness, we're presumptuous students, aren't we?) she never failed to give a response that completely deflected any negative attitudes we might have towards the Middle East.

"Standards of journalism are different everywhere," - "every country has its problems", etc, etc.

And all this may be true - but I have to say that rarely do I fear for my life when interviewing a source, or going out in the field, or trailing a cameraman. And I'm not sure how many news agencies here lose 12 people a year to car bombs and stray bullets.

That being said, I think Al Jazeera is an incredibly respectable exception to what otherwise can often prove to be a fairly repressive journalistic atmosphere, so power to them. Hopefully they continues to inspire and train the young journalists that Camille said "got it" - got the need to investigate and unearth secrets that would otherwise remain buried.

Fun Fact: Al Jazeera is privately owned by a man in Qatar whose wife decided that she wanted a news network that would put Qatar on the map. Now Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English are based out of that country.
Women will rule the world.

Finally, Camille made a really interesting statement ; "TV News is like a movie or a short story, there's a theme, a character, and a message."
     I don't know if that's good or bad (I've yet to fully make up my mind) - but it's interesting, nonetheless, no?