Journos Come and Journos Go

By now you've probably heard that Reuters has opened a news bureau in the MMORPG Second Life..."As strange as it might seem, it's not that different from being a reporter in the real world," said Adam Pasick, who will be reporting as an avatar called "Adam Reuters". "Once you get used to it -- it becomes very much like the job I have been doing for years." The coverage is available here.
The virtual world is getting to the point where people care about it, so it's worth reporting on. But on a far more serious note, there is still a lot of repression of journalists in the physical world, and the United States is one of the main offenders. For example, NYT columnist Nicholas D. Kristof writes about the case of Sami al-Hajj, who was arrested in Afghanistan nearly five years ago for the crime of being a cameraman for Al Jazeera, a news station the Bush Administration doesn't like because it reports things other than White House press releases. The article is a good read if you care about the freedom of the press...and you should.