Journalists are targeted in Iraq because they are not trusted, and they must approach all stories without bias, said Jackie Spinner, a Washington Post correspondent formerly in Iraq, at the School of Communication Week's kickoff event.
Journalists were not free of government ties during Saddam Hussein's regime, Spinner said.
"We're considered tools of the government, agents of the United States," she said. "Iraq is the most dangerous environment the press has ever known."
When correspondents traveled to Kosovo and Central America during past wars, guerrilla leaders knew journalists were merely messengers who would tell the world what they had to say, Spinner said. However, terrorists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi do not need to use journalists as messengers because of the Internet, which made the kidnapping of her personal friend, fellow journalist Jill Carroll, useless.
"It was irrelevant because they didn't need her," Spinner said.
Spinner said journalists in Iraq are not doing "hotel journalism" from secluded areas but are on the ground reporting. She said it is difficult to cover all the stories in Iraq because of the safety issue, and she is offended when the Bush administration blames the media for not publishing enough positive news about Iraq.
"I am personally insulted when the president blames the media," Spinner said.
It is critical for both reporters and publications to have no agendas when reporting on issues such as war, Spinner said. Carroll's life was spared because she had no bias in her reporting, and she should not be criticized as she was by the public because of the video her captors made her record, she said.
"Americans can't have a dialogue anymore - we have to shout at each other," Spinner said. "People ... have this visceral reaction to the war."
The Washington Post has a good reputation in Iraq for its fair reporting, Spinner said. She carried a note written in Arabic that had a quote from Zarqawi praising The Post for exposing the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Spinner and her twin sister Jenny recently co-wrote a book, "Tell Them I Didn't Cry," about her experiences in Iraq. She came up with the idea for the title after reflecting on what she said after her near-kidnapping experience outside Abu Ghraib prison on June 14, 2004.
Spinner said she went to the prison to cover the release of detainees and spent the night in a cell where she could see blood splatters and pieces of flesh from past inhabitants. Outside of the prison, a man grabbed her wrist, and another man picked her up by the waist and dragged her to a car.
However, she said, she did not know she was being kidnapped and only knew she could not get in the car.
"I am not a screamer," she said. "I did not scream."
Marines saw her ordeal and brought her to safety, she said.
Spinner also covered the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004 and the first election in Iraq in January 2005.
The first thing Carroll told her mother when she was reunited with her was "I'm sorry," Spinner said. Spinner said she realizes how hard her correspondence was on her family, and realistically she will not return to Iraq any time soon.
"You feel selfish for a while," she said.
However, if The Post were to put her on a plane to Iraq tomorrow, she would tell her mother she was sorry and go, Spinner said.
The SOC Undergraduate Council sponsored the event.
