As the US network glamour boys fly into Iraq for brief assignments over the election period, the Washington Post reports that American media outlets are having trouble finding journalists who are prepared to work in Iraq month in, month out.

"A number of people who have spent a good deal of time there have said they've done their time and are not eager to go back," says Tim McNulty of the Chicago Tribune.

The story's not dissimilar on this side of the Atlantic. Some highly experienced journalists are loath to spend long periods of time cooped up in a compound in the Green Zone, unable for security reasons to travel freely around the country to find out what's actually happening, while all the time waiting for an insurgent's mortar shell to blow them sky high.

The freelancers, however, often don't have the luxury of saying no.