A terrible thing in Cairo

Lara Logan, chief foreign correspondent for CBS News and 60 Minutes, suffered "a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating" while covering the celebration in Tahrir Square after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced he was stepping down as president. Logan, CBS reports, was finally "saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers," taken back to her hotel, and then flown to the United States on the first flight out. She is recovering in a hospital. CBS News said it will issue no further comments on the incident at this time.

The photo was reportedly taken just moments before Logan was separated from her crew and attacked.

Four in the morning

1. There's some news out of Egypt today. NYT

2. LA City Attorney Carmen Trutanich wants to get tough with political protesters. LAT

3. Huffington Post economics editor Peter Goodman explains the Huffington Way of coverage. HuffPo

4. The low bar of getting a story on Gawker. Capital New York (via Poynter)

Getting detained in Cairo

Andrew Lee Butters of Time magazine writes about how he got punched and threatened at a makeshift checkpoint on the way into Cairo's Tahrir Square, where the bulk of the protesters are encamped. He's one of dozens of reporters being detained or roughed up by thugs, some of whom are believed to be taking orders from the government.

An excerpt from Butters' post:

More young men arrived, and they punched and frog-marched me to a wall where there were several others being held by the crowd, including a pair of Russian journalists, a Lebanese video crew, a kid who had been caught with anti-Mubarak signs, men with Islamic-style beards, and a poor Nigerian house cleaner who had left home without a passport and whom one raving brute in the crowd accused of being a drug dealer. “Mubarak good, the Egyptian system good!” he shouted at us, though it was hard to see from his decaying teeth, tattered clothes, and yellowed toenails that the Egyptian system had done him much good.

Four in the afternoon

1. Using social media to report on Egypt. Mashable

2. The Burbank Leader has followed through on its pledge to sue the city of Burbank for merit-based bonuses paid to city employees. Burbank Leader

3. The nonprofit California Watch has launched a new partnership with several newspapers across the state. CFIR

4. Facebook is making an aggressive push to get in the comments game on media websites - especially startups. CNET

Video of Egyptian protests

Mohamed Ibrahim Elmasry, a Canadian computer science professor staying in Cairo, captured dramatic video of police and protesters clashing on a bridge near Tahir Square. I found the videos on the New York Times' Lede blog.

Al Jazeera and social change in the Middle East

Broadcast news, whatever its allegiances and whatever platform it uses, has great power to organize the collective mind around ideas, ideals and events. While Twitter, Facebook and other social media have been profiled as part of the coverage of protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and Iran, not as much has been said about the role of Al Jazeera. The New York Times yesterday published a fascinating piece on just this subject. From the story:

In many ways, it is Al Jazeera’s moment — not only because of the role it has played, but also because the channel has helped to shape a narrative of popular rage against oppressive American-backed Arab governments (and against Israel) ever since its founding 15 years ago. That narrative has long been implicit in the channel’s heavy emphasis on Arab suffering and political crisis, its screaming-match talk shows, even its sensational news banners and swelling orchestral accompaniments. 

“The notion that there is a common struggle across the Arab world is something Al Jazeera helped create,” said Marc Lynch, a professor of Middle East Studies at George Washington University who has written extensively on the Arab news media. “They did not cause these events, but it’s almost impossible to imagine all this happening without Al Jazeera.”

Read the rest here.

If you want to hear Al Jazeera's coverage, the live English-language stream is here.

A speech in Cairo

President Barack Obama spoke in Cairo today. Story and text.