Monday, Jun. 06, 2011

Nir Rosen and Lara Logan

People around the world watched the Egyptian uprising with rapt attention as pro- and anti-government sides battled in Tahrir Square. Journalists, too, were in the thick of the fighting—Anderson Cooper took some much-seen punches to the face and TIME's own Abigail Hauslohner had to flee from government troops blasting tear gas. Then CBS reported that their foreign affairs correspondent and veteran war reporter Lara Logan had been beaten and sexually assaulted. The story blazed around the internet, fanned by tweets from Nir Rosen, an independent journalist (and former TIME contributor) who has reported from Iraq and Afghanistan for more than a decade. Rosen tweeted that she was a "warmonger" and that she was trying to outdo Anderson Cooper. When he apologized, Rosen claimed that he hadn't realized the seriousness of Logan's assault. Rosen, who resigned from his fellowship from New York University's Center on Law and Security, appeared on Cooper's show via satellite from the Middle East and admitted, "I was a jerk and I was being thoughtless." While Cooper didn't buy other parts of Rosen's explanation, on that part, he agreed.