Lara Logan is one hot commodity. Her derring-do overseas as a foreign war correspondent for CBS News has earned her a reputation as a hard charging, take no prisoners kind of reporter. Her style of journalism has earned her accolades as well as criticism and ridicule.
Earlier this year, after spending most of her time reporting from the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan and other locations covering the U.S. ‘War on Terror” in recent years, Logan relocated. She is now in the safer confines of Washington, D.C. Where Logan is the CBS News’ new Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent. She has also become a top tabloid favorite this year because of her overseas romantic relationships with a U.S. defense contractor and a CNN reporter in Iraq and her announced pregnancy with the contractor’s child. The story of her overseas love life has graced the pages from the National Enquirer to the Washington Post.
When Logan returned to the U.S this year to her new role as Foreign Affairs correspondent, CBS News embarked on a public relations push. Logan appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and grabbed headlines with her blunt opinions about the war and the U.S. media coverage in Iraq and elsewhere. Stories about her were everywhere from TV, print to online media.
One recent story caught The Enterprise Report’s attention. It was posted just over a week ago by “Broadcasting and Cable”, a longtime respected media outlet. The story entitled “Lara Logan’s Spoils of War” by reporter Marisa Guthrie, took a behind the scenes look at Logan’s CBS offices.
Take a look at the story
Spoils of War: A Tour of Lara Logan’s Office from Broadcasting & Cable on Vimeo.
Clearly from the view of things, Logan has some paintings and posters on her office walls that came from Iraq. She even explains to the reporter for Broadcasting and Cable where they came from and how she got them. This could be a problem, because as far as ERSNews can discern taking Iraqi property out of Iraq as “war loot” is a crime in the U.S.
In 2003 after US troops had invaded and removed Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein from power, reporters and other media types who had ridden in with the troops began returning home to the U.S. Many of them decided to bring home some “war souvenirs” from their time in Iraq. The only problem was (and seemingly still is) that the U.S. government says it’s a crime to do so.
The U.S. government even went so far as to charge one media member (an engineer working with the Fox News Channel) with a crime for attempting to bring in various posters and paintings he admitted he had taken from Iraqi palaces. That former Fox News engineer, who was fired at the time, later pleaded guilty to the charge and was fined and given a year’s probation. He is now, as he told ERSNews by telephone today “a convicted felon” unable to vote. He also told ERS that he wasn’t all that interested in talking about his case really, but would take a look at our story.
In 2003, U.S. Customs and The Department of Homeland Security officials held a well attended national media news conference to announce how they were doing everything to stem the tide of looted property from Iraq after the war. You can read some of those 2003 stories here and here
ERS is still wondering, if its illegal to bring in “looted” items from Iraq, and someone has even been convicted of a crime for doing so — why is it O-K for Lara Logan to be displaying a few of those same kind of items framed on her office walls at CBS News and have public media stories done about them without any US Customs people paying attention?. We don’t know yet for sure, but we’ll stay on the story until we find out!
