Sean Penn may join Iraq press gang

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=409063§ion=news

Wed 26 November, 2003 01:02

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sean Penn may be joining the press corps in Iraq.

The actor, who made a controversial visit to Iraq last winter, is considering going back, and this time publishing his accounts of life in the war-torn country for the San Francisco Chronicle, the paper's editor Phil Bronstein said on Tuesday.

"He brings a very keen director's and actor's eye to slices of life in Baghdad," said Bronstein, an old friend of Penn's who read some of the unpublished material Penn wrote during his last trip to Iraq.

Bronstein said the arrangement with Penn remains informal, since he has not yet decided if and when to return to Iraq. Penn sparked controversy last winter when he travelled to Iraq to speak out against the planned U.S. war to topple Saddam Hussein.

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Related stories: http://www.msnbc.com/news/998204.asp

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/showbiz/3239044.stm

[Voltaire99]

1. One of the best creative minds in America

I'd love to see Penn report from Iraq. One brilliant mind is worth the whole lot of disposable Fox, CNN and MSNBC embedded fools.

On the other hand, he's irreplaceable and I'd rather he not take the risk. There are already people of the highest calibre - Robert Fisk, Andrew Cockburn - risking their lives and delivering the finest journalism. You can't read them in the pages of US fishwrap, but a little effort on the web uncovers them (www.zmag.org, www.commondreams.org, www.counterpunch.com).

[NNN0LHI]

2. I agree with you

Fisk and others know the ins and outs of war zones. Little things like how to stay alive. Penn should stay home.

Don

[BiggJawn]

3. Oh...The MEDIA! when you said "press gang"....

I got this mental picture of old Royal Navy Press Gangs, who used to prowl the waterfront kidnapping men and "pressing" them into His Majesty's Service...

That won't start until after the elections, won't it?

[otohara]

4. I Hope His Reports Are On Internet

because we know corporate media whores won't air them.

[FredScuttle]

5. My admiration grows...

I always admired him as an actor, but the courage of his convictions and his outspokeness have really endeared him to me. I remember reading a profile of him some years back where he was asked if he had any sympathy for Ronald Reagan...he replied that he could vividly remember Reagan going on TV and pointedly eating grapes during Cesar Chavez's grape boycotts and, he said, the idea of that same vile man now shitting his diaper didn't bother him one bit. I can't wait to see if he's that daring in the Chronicle.

I bet the freepers are praying for his death right about now.

[Skittles]

6. I agree Sean is one of the best actors we have

but I hope he will be much more articulate than he as when Larry King interviewed him. He rambled on and on and sometimes made little sense.