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John Daley ReportingA CBS News correspondent seriously injured by a car bomb in Iraq is at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Doctors say they will operate on Kimberly Dozier to stabilize wounds to her head and lower extremities. Once her condition stabilizes, she will be moved to the United States.
Dozier is a seasoned war correspondent and CBS News says she was well aware of the risks of reporting in Iraq.
Linda Mason, Senior Vice President, CBS News: "And she was wearing all her gear. And she was doing what she always does, which is get out in the field and talk to the troops."
The bombing that wounded Dozier killed two of her colleagues, an American solider and Iraqi translator. The deaths of those two CBS journalists marks a grim milestone, making the Iraq War the deadliest for reporters in the past century.
Today, our John Daley talked with a Utah journalist who, like the CBS crew, was embedded with US troops.
Tribune reporter Matthew LaPlante can tell you all about the war in Iraq. Covering the military and homeland security beat, he was embedded with U.S. troops for about two months last fall. It was long enough to see up close the kind of violence that hit a CBS news crew, killing a photographer and soundman and critically injuring a reporter.
Matthew LaPlante, Reporter, Salt Lake Tribune: "You're always kind of on the edge of your seat. Even from the backseat of a Humvee, you're kind of looking out the window going, 'Is that going to be the one, is that going to be the one?'"
LaPlante and his photographer never crossed paths with a roadside bomb, though on their third day, a mortar attack hit their base 75 yards from where they were, killing two US servicemen.
Matthew LaPlante, Reporter, Salt Lake Tribune: "Later, people said, 'Well that was well within the kill radius. You know, you guys were just as susceptible as being killed in that attack as the marine and the soldier who were killed in the attack were.'"
Many would rather avoid such dangers, and LaPlante says Utah solders from the 222nd field artillery unit were more than surprised when LaPlante and his photographer showed up at Camp Ramadi.
Matthew LaPlante, Reporter, Salt Lake Tribune: "I told them that we were there to tell their story, to help the people back in Utah understand what was going on in Iraq a little better."
LaPlante says while the story of the CBS crew is indeed tragic, it's all part of the larger story in which US soldiers are dying, and many Iraqi civilians--1000 this month alone.
Matthew LaPlante, Reporter, Salt Lake Tribune: "Even though we in the media often times really focus on the fact a journalist gets killed, it's one death in thousands."
The violence is all too real LaPlante says, but like soldiers, war correspondents have a duty too to try to tell the story, despite the dangers.
LaPlante says at this point the paper has no plans to send him back, but he says he would return to report from there again if given the chance.
According to the Freedom Forum, there have now been 71 journalists killed in Iraq, more than the 63 killed in Vietnam, 17 in Korea and the 69 killed in World War II.
