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Undercover in Iraq

Security may be slowly improving for journalists working in Iraq, according to the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

The award-winning training organisation and web publisher has been running training programmes for Iraqi journalists throughout the past year.

"Things are a bit better since handover - people are pretty supportive of the new government and they really want improved security," said Maggy Zanger, IWPR's Iraqi programme manager.

"But western journalists are pretty limited to Baghdad and even then cautiously - that threat of kidnapping and beheading is pretty scary for Westerners."

Former assistant editor of Middle East Report magazine and journalism tutor at the American University in Cairo, Ms Zanger has been based in Suliamaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Unsurprisingly, she says that Arabic speakers and freelance journalists are able to report much more freely than other Western reporters.

"The big news outlets are hunkered down in Baghdad hotels - they have all these US and UK security companies advising them who are pretty paranoid and also have major insurance restrictions."

It is too dangerous for professional journalists or trainees to identify themselves as journalists, but IWPR's reporters can work discreetly on the streets.

"They don't carry notebooks openly, and would never wear flack jackets as it immediately IDs them as journalists or worse. And no one would dare speak in English in the streets."

Trainees publish their work on the award-winning IWPR website, which features reports from all the organisation's training projects in Afghanistan, central Asia, the Balkans and the Caucasus as well as Iraq. Stories are also syndicated to news organisations around the world, including the BBC.

More news from dotJournalism:
Iraq journalists' training project ready to go
Iraq video clip killings trigger TV investigation

See also:
IWPR: http://www.iwpr.net

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