The McClatchy Company is the third biggest newspaper owner in the U.S., but most of the papers it owns tend to be of the smaller, less internationally-known variety. But it takes foreign reporting very seriously, especially from Iraq. Its “Inside Iraq” blog is a platform for the Iraqi journalists it employs to, well, blog. The posts are often on the mundane aspects of civil war life (“For the first time in more than three years I can call Fallujah from a land line in Baghdad. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!”) and the writers have an impressive capacity for irony. Here’s the text of a post entitled, frankly, “Free Graves”:
In Iraq, journalists are always targeted by insurgents. The last sacrifice was the head of journalist union in Iraq who was assassinated in cold blood few days ago. Yet, no protections measures have taken by Iraqi government to stop this series.
I thought that the Iraqi government is watching this killing series with carelessness and they don’t do much to protect the life of journalists except for condemning and condolences which do nothing to save the precious lives of the Iraqi journalists but today I found out that I was wrong.
Today I read in the news that the governor of Najaf allocated a piece of land for journalist. Before finishing the news, I felt happy for one second only because I thought the man had allocated properties for the journalists to build their houses in the safe city of Najaf but again, I was wrong. The land which was allocated for the journalists by his Excellency the governor of Najaf was inside the biggest graveyard in the world (Dar Al Salam cemetery)… it is allocated to build graves for us after we get killed by the insurgents. This is serious and it’s not a joke.
Is not that great? They think about us even after our death.
