[Media-watch] "WSJ" reporter Farnaz Fassihi going back to Iraq - Editor & Publisher - 3/12/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000731222

 'WSJ' Reporter Farnaz Fassihi Going Back to Baghdad

By Joe Strupp

Published: December 03, 2004 12:30 PM ET updated 2:15 pm

NEW YORK Farnaz Fassihi, the Wall Street Journal reporter whose private 
e-mail to friends lamenting the dangers to reporters in Iraq and criticizing 
the Bush administration's war policy sparked a controversy in October, is 
returning to her war beat next week following a month's vacation and brief 
assignments elsewhere.

"I'm still on the Iraq beat, " Fassihi told E&P in an e-mail Thursday. She 
said she had been to Ramallah to lend a hand in covering the Arafat funeral, 
and is currently in Amman "trying to sort out alternate housing for 
us...before I go back."

In a second email she explained that she would be back in Baghdad on 
Tuesday.

Fassihi drew attention in October when a private e-mail she sent to about 20 
friends criticizing the war effort and complaining that safety concerns made 
coverage difficult ended up on several Web sites, including E&P's. Critics 
said the note showed she had a biased view of the war, while supporters 
pointed out it was a private message to friends and that it accurately 
reflected what every other reporter knew to be true.

When Fassihi left on a month-long vacation soon after the controversy, some 
speculated that it was a retaliatory leave by Journal editors, a notion the 
paper and Fassihi flatly denied at the time.

In an e-mail to E&P Friday, Fassihi said she had put the issue behind her 
and believed her return to Iraq showed that it did not affect her standing 
within the paper. "I understand your interest," she wrote, "but once I go 
back and start filing next week, then hopefully the speculations will end. 
... I don't know why this story doesn't die."