Women at war
Two female journalists covering the presidential election in eastern Afghanistan for The Associated Press were savagely attacked in April. Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus and reporter Kathy Gannon were traveling in a protected convoy of election workers when an attacker shot into their vehicle, killing Niedringhaus instantly and gravely wounding Gannon. The assault stunned their friends and colleagues in the media who knew them as respected, hard-working war correspondents who had spent years in Afghanistan, knew the country well, and were not prone to take foolhardy chances. Doing a job fraught with routine risks and daily dangers, journalists in conflict zones around the world rarely want to become news themselves, as Niedringhaus, a 2007 Nieman Fellow, and Gannon did when the attack on them was featured on the front page of The New York Times on April 5. The story offered a rare glimpse into the harrowing, uncertain circumstances that women reporting...