A US marine is seen raising his rifle in the direction of wounded Iraqi men lying on the floor of a mosque in Fallujah. Photograph: NBC News/AP
Freelance cameraman Kevin Sites has blogged for the first time since he released footage of the shooting of an unarmed and wounded Iraqi in Falluja.
Sites's post is a lengthy open letter to the US marines, but it's well worth reading to the end: he lays out in detail the events surrounding the shooting and refuses to shirk his responsibility to explain his decisions:
In war, as in life, there are plenty of opportunities to see the full spectrum of good and evil that people are capable of. As journalists, it is our job is to report both - though neither may be fully representative of those people on whom we're reporting. For example, acts of selfless heroism are likely to be as unique to a group as the darker deeds. But our coverage of these unique events, combined with the larger perspective - will allow the truth of that situation, in all of its complexities, to begin to emerge. That doesn't make the decision to report events like this one any easier. It has, for me, led to an agonizing struggle - the proverbial long, dark night of the soul.
For more on the wider issues raised for journalists who are embedded with troops, read Observer foreign editor Peter Beaumont's piece, in which he applauds Sites's bravery in "[choosing] to disclose an apparent criminal act committed by his own country's troops while embedded with their unit".
Update: The Guardian has featured Sites's open letter on its front page today (November 23). Also well worth a read is the piece by Channel 4 news journalist Alex Thomson in yesterday's Guardian, where he argues that the only way to correct unbalanced reporting in Iraq is to have embeds on both sides.
