(personal opinion here) Dear God what was The Scotsman thinking running a piece the week a UK journalist died about how their journalist died for four minutes, making her technically the first war correspondent to die in Afghanistan?

The piece by (the normally very good) Emma Cowling is here and go read it, because it’s incredible to think that in this day and age someone thought that was a good idea. I’m not belittling Emma having heatstroke and nearly dying (her original piece highlighting the issue was very good), but she recovered. Rupert was in the warzone, a victim of an IED and died. There’s a considerable difference.

Also, the only reason this piece is being written in The Scotsman is because Rupert died. It’s a total cash-in with no thought behind it. Hundreds of people have died, any one of them is a story before Emma. In fact the only reason Emma is a story is because she’s making it one (like she did in October too).

(If I’m really playing devil’s advocate I can see the idea behind the piece – what reporters go through in war zones, the vital role they play and so on – but that’s not how it comes across the way it is written.)

That’s a bit of a rant there but I’ve been looking at this for a few hours now going ‘what were they thinking of?’ I just can’t see the justification for this piece at all – beyond self-promotion of “I was the first to die – BUT LIVED!” Is that going to be the title of her first book for The McKernan Agency?

What I can’t work out is if the idea for this story came from above (like the much maligned Dunblane Scottish Sunday Express story from a few years ago) or was an idea by the reporter. That and “why?” Every reporter has the tales they’ve been ordered to write, but this one just smacks badly of crassness. Does The Scotsman give every soldier who nearly dies this space? They should, perhaps then we’d learn more about the horrors out there.

Interestingly enough, comments have been disabled for the story. Now that is strange, considering how wild The Scotsman comments sections normally are.