In his NY Times op-ed, Switched Off in Basra, Steven Vincent described how fear of appearing to be 'occupiers' allowed the British to make a mess of Basra.

"No one trusts the police," one Iraqi journalist told me. "If our new ayatollahs snap their fingers, thousands of police will jump." Mufeed al-Mushashaee, the leader of a liberal political organization called the Shabanea Rebellion, told me that he felt that "the entire force should be dissolved and replaced with people educated in human rights and democracy."

Unfortunately, this is precisely what the British aren't doing. Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.

The results are apparent. At the city's university, for example, self-appointed monitors patrol the campuses, ensuring that women's attire and makeup are properly Islamic. "I'd like to throw them off the grounds, but who will do it?" a university administrator asked me. "Most of our police belong to the same religious parties as the monitors."

In this moving tribute, Nick Gillespie described how Vincent's work transcended ideology:

Although he was an unapologetic and ardent supporter of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, he was never an uncritical one. His reporting transcended ideology, which is no small feat. In reality, that's a goddamned lonely place to be, out there way beyond the easy comfort of ideological certitude. It's a place bereft not of hope but of delusion, which is one of the reasons most of us filter the world, especially its darkest corners, through a soft-focus ideological lens. It lets us obscure and ignore all that we don't want to face. Steven's work didn't do that. He had in his mind, doubtless, a vision of the world, and of the Iraq, that he wanted to see become reality, but it didn't keep him from reporting on the misshapen horrors unfolding now in Baghdad, Basra, and beyond.

For journalists, his murder forces us to wonder what stories are worth dying for. His murder is somehow simultaneously an inspiration to us and a cautionary tale, a standing challenge and a tragic example to avoid. Will history vindicate his hopes for Iraq and the wider Middle East? The truthful answer is almost too horrific to admit: We won't know for a long time to come. In the meantime, we can only hope that his blood, and the blood of all the other innocent dead in Iraq, won't just disappear into the desert sand.

Mitchell Muncy posting on Vincent's Blog In the Red Zone, says

According to Aidan White, general secretary of the IFJ, “In more than 90 per cent of all cases there are few serious investigations by the authorities and only a handful of the killers are ever brought to trial. A combination of police corruption, judicial incompetence and political indifference has created a culture of neglect and indifference which makes every day hunting season for attacks on media staff.”

Writing on his blog Wednesday while reporting from southern Lebanon, freelance journalist and Time magazine contributor Christopher Allbritton, in what almost looked to be a throw-away line, relayed that "To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I'm loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist's passport, and they've already hassled a number of us and threatened one."...

..Just as disturbing, and so far flying under the radar, is Allbritton's report that Hezbollah has copies of reporters' passports, and may be using that as leverage over them. This in no way means that reporters are being swayed by the terrorist group, but it does bring the question of intimidation, and journalists' ability to report freely, into focus.

When Hezbollah says "We know where you live," it makes an impression that is hard to forget. Hezbollah, after all, famously kidnapped American journalist Terry Anderson in 1985 and held him for more than six years. It also kidnapped British journalist John McCarthy, Colorado State University Professor Tom Sutherland and some others. The U.S. accused Hezbollah of killing 241 Marines and sailors with a truck bomb that destroyed the Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983, although technically that was an act of guerrilla warfare rather than terrorism.

"I meant we know who you are." He sounded anything but convincing.

"You said you know where I live."

"I did not say that. I did not say that. If I did say that, I was just stressed out."

He didn’t know what he said.

"If I said that, yes, it would have been a threat," he added. At least he didn’t try to say "We know where you live" meant he wanted to send me a Christmas card.

"Honest to God," he said, "it is against our principles to threaten people."

We can get truthful reports from the almost irrationally brave, like Vincent, Michael Yon, Totten and Allbritton, but the unbiased view of the average reporter is also important. If our government made more of an effort to protect journalists, if the deaths of journalists were vigourously investigated and prosecuted, if we actually respected our laws and prosecuted those who make death threats, could America win the hearts and minds of the mass media? If we showed the average CNN journalist that we care about his/her life, would they return the favor by caring about ours? Could our reaction to deaths like Steven Vincent's be a cautionary tale for potential perpetrators, rather than for potential victims?

It couldn't hurt to try.