It is all too easy to take the function of reporting from zones of conflict for granted in a world daily made smaller by the revolution in communications.
Providing accurate, truthful reportage is in fact a difficult and often a dangerous task. The kidnap in Baghdad yesterday of the Irish journalist Rory Carroll is a sharp reminder of this.
On assignment in Iraq for The Guardian newspaper since the beginning of the year, he has exemplified high standards of journalism, reporting a conflict affecting the future of world politics. We need to know what is happening there - including the story of Saddam Hussein's trial for crimes against humanity, the reaction to which he was reporting shortly before he was seized.
Rory Carroll has thus become the latest victim of the wave of kidnapping which has targeted over 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis - a callous symptom of the chaos and disorder arising from the invasion in 2003 led by the United States, and the failure to rebuild elementary security since then. Most of these kidnaps are purely criminal and for money, some are political; but they follow a labyrinthine pattern in which victims may be passed between groups during negotiations for their release.
This has been among the factors which have made it enormously difficult and dangerous for journalists to provide independent reportage. Basic elements of journalistic work such as dealing with contacts and obtaining first-hand evidence are fraught with danger. Indeed many news organisations, including The Irish Times, have concluded on occasion that it was impossible to work reliably in such constrained conditions, as Lara Marlowe writes from Baghdad on page 13 today. The International Federation of Journalists estimates that over 70 journalists and media workers, most of them from Iraq, have been killed since the war began. Rory Carroll is an Irish citizen and the Government has responded immediately and conscientiously to his kidnap. He is a working journalist whose professionalism benefits those who value truthful reportage and he needs the help of all who can secure his release.
Saddam Hussein's trial is an important event in Iraqi politics. It brings home and dramatises the long record of brutal oppression during his dictatorship - and the huge ethical and legal issues arising from the way he has been brought to justice. This is a hybrid trial which has been organised by the Iraqi interim government and the US authorities, not by the UN or an international tribunal. Such a trial in the name of a higher morality demands that justice be seen to be done and not imposed out of vengeance or military victory. The new legal process in Iraq is itself on trial - and needs to be reported scrupulously. The same goes for the Iraqi constitution as the results of last weekend's referendum are awaited. If the effort to transform Iraq fails because of continuing resistance to the occupation, the country will become an even more dangerous and unstable place.