But saying that – or saying only that – would be a disservice to all of the committed and courageous journalists who have given their lives in pursuit of reporting from the most dangerous corners of the earth.

That is especially the case with Foley, a Medill grad who was kidnapped in 2012 while reporting from Syria. My former Medill colleague Steve Duke said it best on a Facebook post when he described James, his former student. “He was a brave, committed journalist who went into dangerous places so the rest of us could know what was going on,” Duke wrote.

A year before being captured in Syria, Foley was kidnapped in Libya. After his release, he wasted little time in getting back out on the front lines in search of the story – and the truth – even after acknowledging to an editor that some would think he was “crazy” for doing so.

I don’t think he was crazy at all. I think he was incredibly courageous, and the very embodiment of what it means to be a war correspondent. He was someone who risked his life to bear witness to the truth.

As such, I hope that Medill, and possibly other journalism and educational organizations will honor his life, and his death, with some form of commemoration. My humble vote: changing the name of the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism Award to the Medill James Foley Medal for Courage in Journalism Award. The award is given to the individual or team of journalists, working for a U.S.-based media outlet, who best displayed moral, ethical or physical courage in the pursuit of a story or series of stories.

That is small consolation to his family, of course. But it would be an important symbolic statement that the Medill community values the kind of reporting that Foley and others like him have done.

Just this year, more than 30 reporters have been killed for being journalists, with many others killed or injured in the line of duty, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Many thousands of other journalists face similar risks in conflict zones around the world every day.

The best person to speak for Foley and his commitment to journalism is Foley himself. Fortunately for us, he took the time to address the circumstances of his first kidnapping, and the lessons he learned from it, in a very frank talk at Medill in 2011. Read about it here.

Foley, a 2008 Medill grad, was emotional that day as he recounted his 44-day ordeal in prison cells in Libya to a packed audience in Evanston as part of the Gertrude and G.D. Crain Jr. lecture series.

Especially remarkable was that Foley agreed to publicly discuss his experience just two weeks after his release. He was contemplative and brutally honest about his time reporting from Libya for Boston-based GlobalPost about clashes between rebel groups and Libyan armed forces battling for control of key cities.

Previously a teacher, Foley switched to journalism in part because his brother was in the Air Force. He said he was also a frustrated writer who wanted to see the world. He said he wanted to tell the American public the real stories about war and where American taxpayer dollars were being spent in the name of protecting them.

At Medill, he took classes on national security reporting and even attended the same weekend “Hostile Environment” training seminar that I take my Washington-based students to, so they can begin the process of learning how to minimize the dangers of reporting from the field.

Foley liked embedding with U.S. troops, but that wasn’t enough. He decided that to get the real story, he had to cover the Libyan revolution by mingling with rebel groups as they advanced on government forces 500 miles southeast of Tripoli.

While doing so, Foley and three other journalists were shot at by Libyan troops in the frontline town of Brega. While three of them were taken captive, the fourth — South African photographer Anton Hammerl — is believed to have been killed in the gunfire.

“Our story is a very cautionary tale,” Foley, then 37, conceded. “We made a lot of mistakes.”

Foley told the audience that day that his Medill training, as well as his field experience, taught him that the critical aspect of covering conflicts is to be mentally strong. That came in handy, not only during his time in prisons and  after media organizations and humanitarian groups successfully pressured Libyan authorities to release him and the other two journalists.

Despite his time spent in Libyan prisons, Foley said he wouldn’t stop reporting on conflicts.

“I told my editor I know this is crazy but I want to go back to Libya,” he said. “But emotionally I am nowhere near ready.”

“Feeling like you’ve survived something—it’s a strange sort of force that you are drawn back to,” Foley was quoted as saying about his Libya experience in news reports today.

Foley was back on the front lines soon enough, covering the conflict in Syria, where he wanted “to expose untold stories,” the BBC reports. The circumstances of how he was taken into custody, and by whom, are still cloudy – at least publicly. His family has asked for privacy during this impossibly difficult time.

Conclusive evidence that Foley had in fact been murdered by ISIL was still being pursued Wednesday. But his mother, Diane Foley, posted a statement on the “Free James Foley” Facebook page in which she implored the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages, including at least one American journalist.

On a more personal note, she added, “We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people.”

During his talk at Medill, Foley said his Libya experience taught him another important lesson, one that is especially relevant today with the news of his death. He said the loss of a fellow journalist had made the recovery process a lot more difficult for him.

“Every day I have to deal with the fact that Anton is not going to see his three kids anymore,” he said of the South African photographer. He told the hushed crowd that day that he believed conflict zones can, indeed, be covered safely.

“This can be done,” he said, “but you have to be very careful.” “It’s not worth losing your life,” he added. “Not worth seeing your mother, father, brother or sister bawling.”

Two influential advocacy organizations have issued a must-read report on how large-scale U.S. surveillance is not only harming journalism and the public’s right to know, but also undermining the rule of law by creating a chilling effect on lawyers trying to do their jobs in the national security realm.

That’s quite a strong and sweeping statement, but the 120-page report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union backs it up in great detail, including interviews with more than 90 journalists, lawyers and both current and former government officials.

The joint report, released on July 28, is titled, “With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy.”

It says the broad and deep surveillance that is occurring, largely out of public view, and government secrecy overall are undermining press freedom, the public’s right to information, and the right to counsel. These are all human rights essential to a healthy democracy, the groups say, and government actions are “ultimately obstructing the American people’s ability to hold their government to account.”

Many journalists writing about national security issues, as well as lawyers and others involved in the system, have been forced to adopt elaborate countermeasures in order to keep their communications, their sources, and other confidential information secure in light of what the groups say is an “unprecedented” level of U.S. government surveillance of electronic communications and transactions by the National Security Agency and other U.S. agencies.

“The work of journalists and lawyers is central to our democracy,” said report author Alex Sinha, the Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch and the ACLU. “When their work suffers, so do we.”

Here’s a link to the news release announcing the report, and here’s the report itself, which can be downloaded for free. Hard copies also can be purchased.

The report isn’t the first to conclude that journalists are finding that surveillance is “harming their ability to report on matters of great public concern.’’

But in its interviews with key journalists, the report reveals good detail on the topic, in its section on The Impact of Surveillance on Journalists, and in another on US Surveillance, Secrecy, and Crackdown on Leaks.

Among those quoted is Steve Coll, a noted author of national security books who is also a staff writer for The New Yorker and the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. “Every national security reporter I know would say that the atmosphere in which professional reporters seek insight into policy failures [and] bad military decisions is just much tougher and much chillier,” Coll says.

That’s not surprising, given all of the revelations about NSA spying in the wake of the massive leaks of classified information about such programs by Edward Snowden. But it is very disconcerting, especially the linkage between the surveillance and media efforts to practice the kind of accountability reporting that is so essential to a democracy.

Washington Post reporter Dana Priest adds that by making it harder for reporters to do their jobs, the government “makes the country less safe.”

“Institutions work less well, and (secrecy) increases the risk of corruption,” Priest said, adding that, “Secrecy works against all of us.”

The report concludes that the chilling effect also has been significant on government officials, and details numerous deterrents put in place to discourage leaks, such as leak investigations and prosecutions, over-classification of documents and preventing officials from having contact with the media. Another significantly detrimental program: the “Insider Threat Program” that essentially requires employees to turn in colleagues who they believe may be leaking state secrets.

One of the most eye-opening aspects of the report is its section on The Impact of Surveillance on Lawyers and Their Clients. This is a part of the controversy that has received far less media coverage than the Obama administration’s crackdown on journalists, but it is especially disconcerting. The report says that the widespread surveillance has sowed deep levels of uncertainty and confusion among lawyers over how to respond to it, “perhaps even more so than the media.”

“Part of that uncertainty derives from the widespread sense that we have yet to learn the full extent of the government’s surveillance powers, and what steps the intelligence community is taking to avoid scooping up attorney-client communications,” said the report. “Part may also reflect the unsettled legal landscape regarding whether attorneys who are surveilled have legal recourse.”

The report found that large-scale surveillance programs endanger lawyers’ ability to communicate confidentially with clients, especially when the government takes an intelligence interest in a case. That’s a problem because failure to meet those responsibilities can result in lawyers facing discipline through professional organizations, or even lawsuits.

The surveillance programs also make it more challenging for lawyers to defend their clients, because they rely on the free exchange of information to build trust and develop legal strategies. “Both problems corrode the ability of lawyers to represent their clients effectively,” the report said.

“As with the journalists, lawyers increasingly feel pressure to adopt strategies to avoid leaving a digital trail that could be monitored. Some use burner phones, others seek out technologies designed to provide security, and still others reported traveling more for in-person meetings,” said the report. “Like journalists, some feel frustrated, and even offended, that they are in this situation. ‘I’ll be damned if I have to start acting like a drug dealer in order to protect my client’s confidentiality,’ said one.”

Said one lawyer specializing in international dispute resolution who was granted anonymity in exchange for being candid: “I found it shocking to think that the U.S. is doing this [surveillance]—and I was at DOJ before.”

Sinha, the report’s author, said, “The US holds itself out as a model of freedom and democracy, but its own surveillance programs are threatening the values it claims to represent. The US should genuinely confront the fact that its massive surveillance programs are damaging many critically important rights.”

To its credit, the report has a robust section on the Government’s Rationale for Surveillance, and it spoke in-depth with some key current and former officials, all of whom staunchly defended the surveillance as being both lawful and necessary to protect the nation from its many enemies.

“These programs are important, vital and lawful,” argued Bob Deitz, who served as General Counsel for the NSA from 1998 to 2006, in an interview with the report’s authors.

The authors did not conclude one way or another whether the programs fall within the letter of US statutory law, whether intelligence officials have engaged in willful misconduct or whether oversight has been adequate, saying such questions fall outside the scope of their report. “However, our research strongly suggests that the US did not design the programs with protection of human rights foremost in mind,” they wrote.

Perhaps most important, the two groups issued a list of recommendations, many of which are similar to those issued in the past year by the Committee to Protect Journalists and other organizations that have been sharply critical of the government’s surveillance.

It calls on the Obama administration and Congress to end “overly broad or unnecessary” surveillance practices, protect whistleblowers and reduce government secrecy and restrictions on official contact with the media. Like other organizations, it also calls on the government to “stop prosecuting people who disclose matters of great public interest.”

Josh Meyer is director of education and outreach for the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative. He spent 20 years with the Los Angeles Times before joining Medill in 2010, where he is also the McCormick Lecturer in National Security Studies. Josh is the co-author of the 2012 best-seller “The Hunt For KSM; Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,’’ and a member of the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors. | Earlier Insights columns

The fire hose of coverage is also welcome in that it proves that national security journalism is more robust than ever, even if it is barely recognizable from what constituted “the media’’ a decade or even a few years ago.

Those thirsting for information about bin Laden’s death — and his capture, his plots and plans, even his sad and sorry life holed up in Abbottabad — have virtually thousands of places to go to for news and analysis. The mainstream media has done a good job of  “moving the ball’’ on all aspects of the subject, thanks in large part to an Obama administration, CIA and military that seem happy to be parceling out little scooplets of information. Some of the best coverage has come from foreign news organizations, including some excellent coverage from journalists in South Asia and elsewhere who have long followed Bin Laden and his leadership of Al Qaeda.

But even more noteworthy is the massive amount of coverage from literally hundreds of bloggers and experts at think thanks, many of them former national security officials who have had some interesting and provocative things to say. Given the public’s voracious appetite for all things bin Laden, all of these new media journalists and pundits now enjoy a potentially huge audience, thanks to search engine technology that brings up their offerings if the right keywords are entered into Google, and links from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And then there are all of the regular citizens weighing in themselves via Facebook and Twitter.

The cacophony of voices is a good thing, even if there is no quality control over what passes for news and analysis these days.

What’s more important is that it is getting the audience thinking about—and debating—important issues like whether Al Qaeda can survive without a charismatic leader like Bin Laden, whether the United States should continue giving so much money to Pakistan and whether Washington should hasten its withdrawal from Afghanistan and allow the Taliban to play a role in that country’s future.

A week ago, a review of the U.S. media by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the mainstream news media had stayed focused on the news in the immediate aftermath of bin Laden’s death, not moving to political ramifications or analysis. The report used computer technology that examined more than 120,000 news stories, 100,000 blog posts, and 6.9 million posts on Twitter or Facebook from May 1 through May 4. Based on that analysis, it concluded that the death of Bin Laden was, by far, the biggest news story since it began keep track in January 2007 in terms of resources spent and stories written. It also found that the attention given to the event in both traditional and new media was mostly focused on the facts, and only nominally focused on the political ramifications of the uber-terrorist’s death.

An updated version of that report has found that while the actual take down of bin Laden remains the dominant focus, the second biggest storyline has been coverage of the political implications of the event followed by the role of Pakistan and its impact on U.S.-Pakistan relations. Then came the implications for future terrorism and national security.

The PEJ report is quick to note that the coverage of this event is evolving almost daily, and that the media—in all its forms—is busy exploring new angles. That is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, which can only be a good thing. On a huge story like this, the more the better.

Josh Meyer of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative covered terrorism and national security—including the rise of Bin Laden and al Qaeda—for the Los Angeles Times from 2000 to 2010.

Tim Hetherington, as pictured in ABC story.

A colleague said other reporters in Libya had also confirmed Hetherington’s death. “Everybody is sort of looking at each other trying to figure this out. We are at a loss for words,’’ he said.

In recent years, Hetherington’s work has been a reminder that some of the best journalism of wars and conflict doesn’t come in the form of a newspaper article or even a TV news report or a book.   He was a journalist who spent months at the front line of  war in an effort to get behind the news of the day or even of the month, to get to larger truths in a way that can only be shown through the visceral medium of video.

Hetherington was extremely well-respected not only by fellow journalists, but by the soldiers with whom he often shared a bunker.

“He was almost an honorary OIF and OAF veteran,’’ the friend said in reference to the official acronyms for the two wars that have consumed the U.S. military for most of the past decade. “He was considered almost a member of the [military] service because he spent so much time getting to know us in the service.’’

Hetherington and author Sebastian Junger won the coveted Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival last year for their powerful film Restrepo.

The documentary , also nominated for an Academy Award, chronicles in harrowing detail how Hetherington and Junger spent most of 2008 dug in with the men of Second Platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, a stronghold of al Qaeda and the Taliban. The film was named for one of the platoon members, PFC Juan Restrepo, whose comrades erected an outpost in his honor after he was killed.

“Up close and personal, Junger and Hetherington gain extraordinary insight into the surreal combination of backbreaking labor and deadly firefights that are a way of life at Outpost Restrepo,’’ is the way the Sundance website describes the film.

Hetherington—one of the best known photojournalists working today—also produced powerful pieces for ABC News’ “Nightline” in Afghanistan.

ABC News’ James Goldston, who worked closely with him as executive producer of “Nightline,” described him as “one of the bravest photographers and filmmakers I have ever met.’’

“During his shooting for the Nightline specials he very seriously broke his leg on a night march out of a very isolated forward operating base that was under  attack. He had the strength and character to walk for four hours through the night on his shattered ankle without complaint and under fire, enabling that whole team to reach safety,’’ Goldston said in an ABC story about Hetherington’s death.

Hetherington was also doing an embed with an Army unit in Afghanistan when Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta risked his life in an effort to save some comrades who were under fire. For his selfless actions, Giunta became the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since Vietnam.

News of the today’s casualties first surfaced on Twitter and on the Facebook page of Andre Liohn, a French photographer who was apparently with Hetherington and Hondros at a Libyan hospital, according to news reports.

Chris Hondros's Twitter picture

Hondros has covered conflicts from Kosovo to Lebanon, Iraq to Afghanistan and many more, as senior staff photographer for Getty Images. His work has appeared in virtually all the major American papers and magazines. His awards include the Robert Capa Gold Medal, war photography’s highest honor, according to wire service reports. Those reports said a spokeswoman for Getty Images could not confirm that Hondros has been killed.

“Restrepo’’ is considered one of the best documentaries ever about war, in part because it illuminates one of the most wrenching and fundamental truths of combat: its unpredictability.

“Ever wonder what it’s really like to be in the trenches of war? Look no further. Restrepo may be one of the most experiential and visceral war films you’ll ever see,’’ the Sundance website says. “With unprecedented access, the filmmakers reveal the humor and camaraderie of men who come under daily fire, never knowing which of them won’t make it home.’’

In the story, Emily Wax shares her perspective on the special hazards for female journalists abroad. In doing so, however, she raises some important issues for all journalists and highlights some of the unexpected problems of reporting in “hot zone’’ countries with different cultures than those of the United States.

As Wax writes, she was a 28-year-old reporter about to cover Africa in 2002 when she was sent to rural Virginia to attend hostile-environment training. I know the course well because I take my students there for a weekend course a few times a year. In the wilds near Winchester, former British Royal Marines tell journalists such survival techniques as how to apply first aid, how to negotiate a traffic stop in hostile territory and how to look for potentially deadly mines.

In the more comprehensive course she took, Wax says, the Centurion Risk Assessment Services trainers taught such survival techniques as how to filter your own urine if you are dehydrated in a desert and how to drag a wounded 200-pound colleague through a field studded with land mines.

Like most journalists, she never had to put those skills to use. But Wax wrote at length about all of the things she encountered—less extreme but more pervasive—that made being a female foreign correspondent so challenging when deployed to countries such as Egypt, Pakistan or India.

It’s good stuff to know: how to deal with “grabby’’ strangers while reporting on the street, curious photo takers and “the flirtatious fixer who wants a good-night kiss.’’

“Foreign female journalists face challenges most often in parts of the world where protections for women are weak even in peacetime — in societies where men and women lead highly segregated lives and often don’t have sex before marriage,’’ writes Wax. “In these countries, men often say they view Western women as the sexual equivalent of junk food: fast and cheap.’’

She adds that these dangers increase exponentially when countries are in the midst of revolution and lawlessness, noting the harrowing cases recently of CBS News’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, Lara Logan, who was sexually attacked in Egypt and the kidnapping and sexual assault of New York Times photojournalist Lynsey Addario in Libya.

There are several places for reporters to go online to get additional information on how to take precautions while reporting overseas, including The Committee to Protect Journalists, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma.

Wax is perhaps most eloquent when she discusses why it so important for female journalists to report overseas: because they have are so attuned to the indignities and discriminations suffered by women in “places where wives, mothers and daughters have few legal rights. Their lives often include forced marriage, genital mutilation, beatings and a long list of daily indignities that make the problems of first-world women seem negligible.’’

Addario, for instance, has spent years documenting human rights violations around the world, which were often crimes against women. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, she was able to enter homes and hospital wards where foreign men in many conservative societies would never be allowed access, Wax writes.

One positive outcome of the Logan and Addario assaults, Wax writes, is that the challenges women face are now finally being openly discussed — and female correspondents are leading the conversation at newspapers such as the New York Times.   The Committee to Protect Journalists recently launched a widespread survey of female reporters and photographers in war zones and conflict areas in order to document attacks. CPJ will also include guidelines on sexual assault in the next edition of its handbook.

Wax says that CPJ keeps track of how many reporters get killed or arrested, but not on how many suffer from rape or sexual harassment. And she notes that the Centurion training had little in the way of specific guidance for woman.

Personally I found that some of the Centurion training sessions I participated in did have some detailed discussions of what women should do in certain scenarios, such as not allowing yourself to be separated from a crowd of others if you are all taken hostage or kidnapped. A Centurion representative told Wax that even more attention will be paid to that in future training sessions.

Many female correspondents have said in interviews that they would have benefited from an honest discussion about what to expect before heading off to hot zones, Wax says.

Her article is a great place to start that discussion.

Cover of Spring issue

But one of those magazines seems to be doing rather well, judging from its most recent issue that hit the Internet earlier this week.

Unfortunately for most of the world, that magazine is “Inspire,’’ the relatively recent online startup established by al Qaeda’s most enterprising affiliate.

Written in English and using cultural references familiar to U.S. teenagers, it is aimed specifically at radicalizing Muslims in the West.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is now considered to be the al Qaeda arm that is responsible for the group’s most spectacular attempted attacks in recent years. And as Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh fights an insurrection, U.S. counter-terrorism officials fear AQAP will become even more of a worldwide threat, especially with such sophisticated marketing efforts.

The latest (and fifth) issue of the Yemen-based English-language publication  is quite artfully done, and shows the Earth plunging deep into water, and uses the catastrophic tsunami that hit Japan as a metaphor for the “unfolding revolution that has brought with it a wave of change’’ in parts of North Africa and the Middle East. U.S. intelligence officials appear to have confirmed the authenticity of the magazine, dismissing some claims that it is propaganda from forces either opposed to, or supporting, the terror network founded and led by Osama bin Laden.

The cover “tsunami’’ story is purportedly written by Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, the firebrand American-born cleric who is among the most wanted men in the world for his calls for jihad against the United States and the West. Reuters is one of many news outlets that treated the magazine’s release Tuesday as a genuine news event, quoting Awlaki’s comments at length.

Western and Arab officials believe the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change in some of these countries is a counterweight to al Qaeda’s push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible, according to the Reuters report. But it also quoted Awlaki, al Qaeda’s most influential English-language preacher, as saying the removal of some of the regimes, which have vehemently fought Islamists, means that jihadi fighters and scholars sympathetic to them will be more free to discuss and organize against their governments.

Magazine's guide to using the AK-47 assault rifle

“Our mujahideen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and the rest of the Muslim world will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation,” Reuters quotes Awlaki as writing. “For the scholars and activists of Egypt to be able to speak again freely, it would represent a great leap forward for the mujahideen,’’ or holy warriors.

Awlaki is believed to be hiding in southern Yemen an in effort to avoid U.S. efforts to kill or capture him. In the article, he urges al Qaeda’s followers to be patient: “We do not know yet what the outcome would be (in any given country), and we do not have to. The outcome doesn’t have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction.’’

The online magazine’s cover also highlights an article ostensibly written by Bin Laden’s top lieutenant (and, many say, co-equal in al Qaeda), Ayman al-Zawahiri. The magazine does not appear to have a home on the Internet, but is circulating online in PDF format. (Links to earlier issues).

In recent months, it has caught the attention of “Big Media,’’ with some major newspapers and magazines describing it as a sort of Vanity Fair of jihadists and their sympathizers. The magazine itself says it is trying to radicalize the young and impressionable to take action against the West.

So far, at least one would-be suicide bomber has reportedly claimed to be a fan of the magazine. The magazine started last summer and each issue has included tips on how to blow up Americans and other Westerners.

More recently, al Qaeda launched a glossy women’s magazine that seems to be equal parts Cosmo and Soldier of Fortune. The cover of Al-Shamikha, which means The Majestic Woman, features the barrel of a sub-machine gun and a woman in a long black veil.

It includes tips beauty and fashion… and suicide bombings and how to marry a mujahideen.

The cover of Al-Shamikha

Bergen (Source: New America Foundation)

In a free-wheeling talk at the New America Foundation on Friday (3/11/2011), Bergen said that while the majority of polled Americans are against the war in Afghanistan, 65% of Afghans themselves recently told pollsters that they think the country is going in the right direction.

And while Americans are given one media report after another about how Afghanistan is filled with exploding bombs, attacking hordes of Taliban and a lawlessness that pervades every corner of the war-torn nation, the real story is a more nuanced one. A frequent traveler to Afghanistan, Bergen says there is violence and an insurgency, yes, but that it is largely isolated and nothing like the bloody civil war and vicious urban warfare that gripped Iraq for several years until a U.S. military surge helped restore some semblance of order.

In fact, Bergen said, one is more likely to be killed in Washington, D.C. than in Afghanistan, according to official statistics based on the percentage of deaths per population. And, he added, far fewer civilians are dying in Afghanistan now than in Iraq during the height of the war there—or, notably, even now in Iraq, even though Iraq has a smaller population.

“Anyone in this room could go to Kabul now and have a fairly good time. There are restaurants and there are bars,’’ and the streets aren’t a shooting gallery with various factions trying to kill each other, while armed insurgents are also trying to kill U.S. and coalition forces. “The Taliban is not a very large insurgent group,’’ he said.

Iraq, in contrast, garners nary a headline, yet the war there continues, according to Bergen. He also said that one of the most important decisions in the Afghan war, by President Barack Obama to keep a large U.S. force there through 2014, has generated far fewer headlines than it should have.

Bergen made his comments during a discussion of his new book, “The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda,’’ which has been praised as required reading on the state of U.S. national security by a wide array of experts. The book looks back on a decade of war between America and al Qaeda, and the war on terrorism and two related wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To a packed audience in Washington, Bergen explained that he set out to write his magnum opus not just from the perspective of the U.S. military, political and intelligence establishments but from the perspective of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as well. One without the other, he said, would be like writing about World War II from the impossibly narrow perspective of President Franklin Roosevelt or Britain’s Winston Churchill.

Bergen said the initial draft of the book weighed in at 1,000 pages, joking that he considered changing the title to, “The Longest Book.’’

In the shorter, published version (473 pages, including index), he makes some trenchant observations, cataloging the strategic blunders made not only by the Bush and Obama administrations, but also by Osama bin Laden. The Al Qaeda leader, he writes, was warned by many associates not to launch the 9/11 attacks because the massive military response would deprive Al Qaeda of its safe haven and undermine its mission of creating an Islamic caliphate throughout much of the Muslim world. As a result, he said, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are living on borrowed time, without a truly protected safe haven and a solid base of supporters around the world.

He was even more critical of U.S. officials, especially the Bush administration, for a lack of planning for back the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Foreign Policy, in fact, recently described the book as “a damning, step-by-step assessment of how a shadowy, often misinformed enemy managed to pull the world’s biggest superpower into a sometimes catastrophic and frequently damaging worldwide combat. So what have we learned from fighting this war? Bergen argues: Not as much as we should have.’’

During the question and answer period, I asked Bergen who was to blame for what he described as the American public’s skewed version of the two wars, especially the apocalyptic descriptions of the conflict in Afghanistan.

A veteran journalist himself and CNN national security analyst, Bergen was reluctant to blame the media for the fact that Americans aren’t necessarily getting a full picture of the two wars.

He and panel moderator Susan Glasser of Foreign Policy magazine suggested that a certain narrative has emerged for both wars that some, but not all, reporters tend to follow.

But, Bergen said, “If it’s not being well communicated to the American public that the Afghan war is nothing like the Iraq war, the media has to take some responsibility for that. The differences between Afghanistan and Iraq couldn’t be more stark.’’

They have just released the results of their investigation, and the lengthy report raises important questions about why more than half of the 27 people allegedly involved in Pearl’s kidnapping, detention and murder were never brought to justice in their home country.

But for those interested in the future of national security journalism—especially of an investigative nature—the details about how the project worked are as noteworthy as its findings.  (see “The Truth Left Behind: Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl.’’)

The project was led by Barbara Feinman Todd, associate dean of journalism at Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies, and Asra Nomani, Pearl’s friend and former colleague from the Wall Street Journal. Pearl and his wife, Mariane, were staying in Nomani’s house in Karachi when he went out to meet a source about the jihadist underworld and never came home.

“Sadly, we couldn’t save Danny, but journalists are sort of like the Marines. We can’t leave the truth behind,” Nomani said at the project’s outset in 2007.  “For the five years since Danny was killed, I have wanted to find out the full truth behind Danny’s kidnapping and murder. We are truly fortunate that the leaders of Georgetown University believe deeply in bringing academic principles of critical thinking, investigation and social justice to the world.”

Mariane Pearl said at the time that the project  was important not just for her and her husband, “but also for all journalists and citizens. This investigation is crucial for the sake of truth and independence, two values treasured by my husband and by other courageous journalists who refuse to make compromises–political or otherwise–in their quest to tell the story.”

Robert Manuel, dean of the School of Continuing Studies, described it at the launch as bringing “the real world into the classroom,” and a unique experience in which students “will be a part of history as it unfolds-instead of reading about it in a textbook.’’

The Pearl Project began as a six-credit seminar during the academic school year 2007-08, and The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation provided funding. But it bloomed into much more than that, ultimately becoming a model for how university-based journalism schools can do some of the best investigative reporting around—and often the kinds of long, complex and potentially controversial  “deep dives’’ that the mainstream media is doing less of these days. At then end of the project’s first year, most students moved on, but  a handful stayed.

Nomani and Feinman Todd ultimately joined forces with some prominent working journalists, and with the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, which has sponsored the project, providing some journalistic firepower and also published the findings on its website.

The team modeled the Pearl Project after the Arizona Project, an investigative reporting initiative that looked into the murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles three decades ago and brought together dozens of prominent journalists. It helped launch the group Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Over the past three-plus years, the Pearl team grew to 32 people. They interviewed hundreds of sources and pored over thousands of pages of documents in an effort to uncover what Pakistani and American authorities had learned about Pearl’s slaying. They also took the case farther than the authorities did—and point some fingers at both suspects and the investigators who were pursuing them.

In fact, the report said, only four men have been charged and convicted; none of them involved in the actual murder of Pearl. It also concluded that self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed slashed Pearl’s throat and then decapitated him, holding aloft his head in a video that was later circulated on the Internet. Mohammed, or KSM as he is widely known, had claimed so himself. But the project’s investigators wrote that the U.S. government took steps to independently confirm that after his capture in Pakistan in 2003 by matching the veins on KSM’s right hand with those in the video.

And that raises an important question: CIA waterboarding may have irreparably tainted a criminal prosecution of KSM for the 9/11 attacks, but why can’t the Justice Department charge and try him in federal court for the murder of Pearl, a U.S. citizen?

The team is now embarking on another ambitious venture; the Pearl Consortium of Faculty-Student Investigative Reporting Projects, to bring together the many faculty-student investigative reporting projects emerging at universities around the world and use them to fill the gap created by reduced numbers of  mainstream media investigative reporting teams, Feinman Todd and Nomani say. (At least three are here at Medill, including its National Security Journalism Initiative, Innocence Project and Watchdog Reporting Initiative).

They say the consortium is committed to nurturing a new generation of investigative reporters trained in old school gumshoe reporting combined with new media expertise.

“This consortium will be a place, though only virtual at first, where we can come together to talk about what we’re doing, to brainstorm about particular challenges of various natures–creative, legal, ethical or practical,’’ the say on the project’s website. “Over time we will meet in person, for panels, coffee, brainstorming sessions and to celebrate the publication of our work and the accomplishments of our students.’’

It is an effort that deserves attention, and support from the broader journalistic community. Those interested in participating can email pearlproject@georgetown.edu and also sign up for their electronic newsletter.

The Los Angeles Times, in an article and subsequent editorial, delved into the issue of whether Davis was unjustly dismissed, as he claims, for writing twoopinion articles on military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.

The CRS, part of the Library of Congress, provides independent information to members of Congress to aid them in the drafting of legislation and making policy. Davis was the assistant director of the service’s Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division. According to The Times, a directive put out by the agency says that employees should “think carefully before taking a public position on subject matters for which they are responsible at CRS.”

But Davis, now with the Crimes of War P roject, contends in his lawsuit seeking reinstatement that his division did not deal with questions connected to Guantanamo or military commissions. Those are handled by the American Law Division, he says.

But he was fired after publishing two opinion articles in major newspapers concerning the Obama administration’s decision to try some accused terrorists in civilian courts and some in military commissions.

“The words `arbitrary’ and `capricious’ are too kind to describe the Congressional
Research Service’s decision to fire [Davis], a retired Air Force colonel and former
chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,’’ The Times said in its January 8 editorial.

“Davis’ offense was to speak and write on his own time about a subject on which he is an expert: flaws in the military commission system and the appropriate way to bring accused terrorists to justice,’’ the paper’s editorial said. “His dismissal reflects a decision by his employers to take a legitimate principle — the importance of not politicizing a nonpartisan agency — to unjust extremes.’’

For its part, the CRS — through a lawyer — has argued that staff members must avoid conduct that would undermine the appearance of objectivity and non-partisanship.

“But neither that language nor a series of directives by the Library of Congress and the service explicitly prohibits outside speaking of the sort engaged in by Davis, which focused in restrained and nonpartisan language on a subject within his area of expertise,’’ The Times wrote.

As the newspaper noted, Davis’ story is only partly about mixed signals from his employer. It also involves the broader question of free speech for federal employees, especially about touchy national security issues such as Guantanamo.

“In our view, Davis clearly falls into that category,’’ the paper said. “He should be reinstated.’’

Note: The Crimes of War project is housed at the Medill Washington program’s offices.

The University of Oklahoma and veteran broadcast reporter Mike Boettcher have come up with an intriguing model for how to help sustain that kind of journalism, while also using it as a tool for teaching the next generation of national security journalists.

Boettcher , a visiting professor at OU’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, will work with students to produce multimedia content based on his reports from Afghanistan, for ABC News platforms including ABCNews.com, starting Sept. 1. The school and ABC will divvy up the costs, making it more affordable for both, Boettcher said in an interview here at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

This is AEJMC’s 94th annual conference (it runs through Aug. 7), and more than 1,600 educators are spending their days and nights figuring how they – and their students – can best adapt to the cataclysmic changes in the media landscape.

A full day of pre-conference workshops Aug. 3 focused on how university journalism programs can help fill the gaps left by the cuts at mainstream media outlets. Many schools, including Medill, have established programs through which student journalists are working in cooperation with their professional counterparts on groundbreaking projects.

Under the auspices of the OU-ABC partnership, Boettcher and his son Carlos will spend a year embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan, recording footage and interviewing people involved at the front lines of that conflict. Multimedia material will be transmitted to Norman, Okla., where undergraduate and graduate students will prepare it for ABCNews.com and other ABC outlets.

Sarkeys Foundation, which is based in Norman, is funding the project.

Boettcher, who reported from Afghanistan for ABC News last summer, spent many years with NBC News after starting his career with CNN in 1980. He said that he plans to deliver lectures to students from the front lines, via Skype.

“I want to tell the personal stories of the men and women that are fighting this war,’’ said Boettcher. “This project will let me do that and still work with the great students at OU.’’

Charles Self, an OU journalism faculty member and past president of AEJMC, said in an interview that such partnerships are a tremendous boon to students, who get to work with a world-class journalist, even as he reports from the front line of the war in Afghanistan. But he said it could ultimately prove to be a model that could “save’’ foreign reporting, especially long-term embeds in war zones and other conflict areas.

“We know it works because we’ve done it,’’ said Self, referring to a recent pilot project in which Boettcher did a similar reporting/teaching effort in Iraq. “It’s a bargain for us because we don’t have to pay Mike’s entire salary, and it’s a bargain for the news agency because they don’t have to either.’’