Journalism

"I don't know what the news is from the rest of Iraq or even what's going on with the governor of Najaf," writes Chris Albritton, a freelance journalist who has been covering the fighting in Iraq. "I do know what's happening with the police department, however. They're raiding the Sea of Najaf hotel and rounding the 100 or so journalists at gunpoint and subjecting them to mass arrest." Albritton describes his recent experience, when police "raided the hotel and forced all the journalists out onto the street. We were terrified. The cops yelled at us and pointed their weapons toward us.

Among the professions "less popular than journalism," notes Bill Hagerty, the "furtive world of public relations" is considered by many people to be "a black art, inferior only to child slave-trading or body-snatching." He cites a recent survey showing that British journalists hold PR people in especially low esteem. Nevertheless, he notes, "indications are that PR and publicists are becoming increasingly more influential and powerful."

"To protect the people of Iraq and the interests of Iraq," Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi ordered the Al-Jazeera television network's Baghdad offices closed for one month. The closure "will give them the chance to readjust their policy against Iraq," said Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib.

New York Times' columnist Paul Krugman looks into why Americans haven't heard much about John Kerry's proposal to extend health insurance to lower- and middle-income families. After "reading 60 days' worth" of transcripts from major cable and broadcast TV networks Krugman writes, "Never mind the details - I couldn't even find a clear statement that Mr. Kerry wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the uninsured. When reports mentioned the Kerry plan at all, it was usually horse race analysis - how it's playing, not what's in it.