Paying the price for Iraq War coverage

March 18, 2008 When the Iraq War began in March 2003, few anticipated that journalists would pay so high a price in blood and money to cover the conflict that has stretched five years and shows no sign of ending anytime soon. Coverage of the war has cost the lives of 180 Iraqi and foreign journalists and cost the world's news organizations tens of millions of dollars a year to keep bureaus open in Baghdad and turn out war news that is, surveys suggest, at a low ebb in terms of public interest. "We've got 160,000 men and women who are stationed over there and in harm's way every single day of the year," said ABC News president David Westin, who returned in February from a trip to Iraq.

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