Covering Tim Russert’s death: As journalist? Or celebrity?

On Jan. 15, Carsten Thomassen, a 38-year-old Norwegian who worked for the Oslo daily Dagbladet, died in a suicide bombing at a hotel in Kabul.

On Feb. 27, Shihab al-Tamimi, head of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, died after being shot in Baghdad.

On March 29, Carlos Quispe Quispe, a Bolivian journalist for a government-run radio station, was severely beaten by protesters demanding the ouster of the local mayor and died.

On April 25, Jassim al-Batat, a correspondent at Al-Nakhil TV and Radio, was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in a small town north of Basra.

On Friday, NBC News journalist and commentator Tim Russert died while doing voice-overs for his Sunday news program.

I — we— have obviously heard of Mr. Russert. But I had never heard of journalists Thomassen, al-Tamimi, Quispe, and al-Batat until I visited the Web site of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which tracks deaths, injuries, and disappearances of journalists worldwide.

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