the truth is on vacation

Farnaz Fassihi, originally uploaded by John Barleycorn.

Last days there have been a lot of comments in the media about Wall Street Journal's Middle East correspondent Farnaz Fassihi and the private email about the situation in Iraq that she sent to some of her friends. Later a copy of her email began circulating on the internet where it created a big fuss. Some people asked the obvious question: "Why can't reporters on the ground occasionally speak to the 'public' like this one occasionally spoke to her friends?"
As a result of all this fuss, Farnaz Fassihis employer, the Wall Street Journal, started to react. It seems like they didn't like it when their reporters wrote things like: "Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest."

"I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive."

As a result of the e-mails it seems like Farnaz has been forced by the Wall Street Journal to take a vacation. The LA Times writes: "Wednesday, two of the paper's (Wall Street Journal) staff members - both of whom asked not to be identified - said they had been told that Fassihi would not be allowed to write about Iraq for the paper until after the election, presumably because unauthorized publication of her private correspondence somehow called into question the fairness of her journalism.

In point of fact, no one has questioned the content of Fassihi's reporting nor alleged that it has been in any way biased."

The LA Times continues:"So was Fassihi told not to write about Iraq by WSJ editors until after Nov. 2? It seemed an easy matter to resolve, though, as it turns out, very little in this uneasy moment yields to easy resolution.

Paul Steiger, the Journal's managing editor, was unavailable by phone Thursday, but his spokesman, Robert Christie, accepted a question on his behalf and agreed to put it to the editor: Had Fassihi's e-mail been the subject of discussion among her editors and had they decided that its dissemination should prevent her from writing about Iraq until after Nov. 2?

Christie forwarded Steiger's response by e-mail: "Ms. Fassihi is coming out of Iraq shortly on a long planned vacation. That vacation was planned to, and will, extend past the election."

A follow-up question seemed in order and was sent to Steiger, through Christie, by e-mail: "If this correspondent wishes to write about Iraq for the Wall Street Journal, is she free to do so?"

Steiger's reply, via his spokesman, was this: "She is going on a long-scheduled vacation outside Iraq and has no plans to work during that time."

The truth is on vacation. There is a small possibility that it will be back after the November election.