Journalists in Iraq Forge Grimly Ahead

NBC News correspondent Richard Engel arrived in Baghdad in February 2003, which makes him the most senior of a band of reporters who voluntarily stay despite kidnappings, roadside bombings and other risks many colleagues would never dream of taking.

“I don’t want to be hurt or injured or die, and I’m not a daredevil in any way. But I love my job, and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else,” Engel said from Baghdad Tuesday.

News organizations know they need to keep covering a war in which Americans are being killed, he says, and Engel is seeing the same faces returning. “Rarely do we see new people arriving.” Just hours earlier, Engel had reported on Today on a roadside bombing in Baghdad that killed CBS News cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan and critically injured correspondent Kimberly Dozier and her pet monkey.

[Via GE.com]