Was it right, Twitter wondered yesterday, that Marie Colvin, The Sunday Times correspondent killed in Syria, should be referred to as a "female war reporter"? Of course, it's wrong. It doesn't matter a damn whether Colvin was a man or a woman. Until her life was quenched by a Syrian army rocket, she was there on the ground. In Homs. Reporting. That is what mattered.
Amid all the sound and heat the Leveson Inquiry has generated over such media transgressions as the phone-hacking of celebrities in this country, it's been easy to lose sight of one of the most important raisons d'être of a vibrant, professional and diverse press, free from state interference. And that's being equipped to cover events in those parts of the world where dictators can have you jailed for saying the wrong thing, where propaganda and news are interchangeable and where the hands of journalists are shackled by "Information Ministries". Read Full
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