WitnessLA.com reports that Baghdad Bureau Manager Salar Jaff was among those let go last week in the paper’s latest round of layoffs, and Celeste Fremon says it’s a big loss. “He has literally saved lives,” a former Baghdad colleague of Jaff’s told Fremon.
Most specifically, Jaff, who is Iraqi, was the Times’ journalist who was integral to keeping other reporters safe during the worst days, months and years in Baghdad. He talked people out of dangerous situations, smoothed the way for them when things got dicey, told them where they could go, and where it was too perilous, headed off potential trouble. This often meant that, as an Iraqi citizen, he was the one at the bureau who took the greatest risks of all to make sure that the reporters in his charge could function in what was, for a long period, one of the deadliest of places on earth for journalists.
Yet Jaff was much more than a skilled fixer. “I think most reporters would acknowledge Salar was an important, often uncredited analyst who guided them through their knowledge deficits as they told the story of a place they did not understand,” explained the former Baghdad reporter.
We as readers benefited greatly as a consequence”
Jaff’s last story for the paper >>
He is now awaiting a visa in the hope of immigrating to the U.S.
Read Jaff’s good bye letter >>