A journalist always takes good [foot]notes...

I was hoping to let this one fly past me, but after listening to On the Media's take on President Bush's shoe attack, I can't help wanting to retread this ground for a bit. (Okay, maybe that was too much even for me.)

Since deftly removing his shoes and hurling them at President Bush during a press conference in Iraq, Muntazer al-Zaidi has been branded both a symbol of Iraqi discontent over the U.S.'s occupation and a disrespectful dissident—no one should throw shoes at anyone's president, whether or not he ushered a period of sectarian violence and civil disarray into the country. Besides his major-league baseball potential, one characteristic of al-Zaidi that has at times been sidelined by the media's coverage and the resulting viral video: He is a journalist, not a terrorist, political activist or lunatic trying to get attention. Simply a journalist.

And where one might expect people in the latter category to leap to action, slinging shoelaces and curses Bush's way, the journalist is perpetually sidelined for impartiality's sake; never quite a part of the fray, even if a tape recorder or notepad is the only thing separating them. Journalists are discouraged from expressing any political opinion in public. Some political journalists choose not to vote in elections at all—especially if they've been covering the candidates involved.

I think most members of the news media will agree that it's okay, if not inevitable, for a journalist to hold opinions. The question al-Zaidi's antics raise, however, is to what extent a journalist owes it to himself to take action when he sees injustice. In other words, when should a journalist put down his pen and pick up his shoe (for lack of a better object, I suppose)? And what to do when this decision becomes a choice between the trust of his readers and his own moral compass?

Bob Garfield:

Not even the most pernicious media filter, its own triviality, could filter out the real story. The tape told it plainly.

A working journalist – not a Baathist insurgent, not a Shiite cleric, not a foreign Jihadist, but a journalist – was finally so outraged by the blood and chaos visited upon his country that Muntazer al-Zaidi lashed out at the most powerful man in the world at who knew what cost to his career and personal safety.

Maybe he guessed that he would become a hero throughout the Arab world, but he could just as easily wind up a martyr. His family has said he’s already been severely beaten in prison. What would make him risk everything?

I want to become a journalist because I think there is little that is more important than the task of informing people. The story is king, even if that means digging around and reporting on the ground, whatever risks involved. But maybe there's something even more risky than reporting a story, and more important that Muntazer al-Zaidi hit on with that shoe last week.