Because of the dangerous situation there, none of the commercial Japanese TV networks have staff correspondents in Iraq. On-site reporting that's shown on Japanese TV is from either other countries' news organizations or freelance Japanese reporters, the most prominent of whom is probably Takeharu Watai, a member of the Asia Press International video reporters collective. Watai has submitted reports to all the major Japanese networks except NHK, and this week his documentary about the Iraq War, "Little Birds," starts a theatrical run in Tokyo.

API's stated purpose is to "listen and give voice to people ignored and shunned by major mass media networks." Two weeks ago, when TBS's nightly news program, "News 23," showed clips from "Little Birds" and interviewed Watai, anchorman Tetsuya Chikushi commented that war reporting usually focuses on big stories that are easy to grasp, like bombings and battles. Watai has done that, but there are many things he wants to convey about the situation in Iraq that rarely make it to television, either because of their graphic nature or because they don't lend themselves to simple, immediate explanations. "I wanted to show what Iraqi people are going through," he said.

On the Internet it's easy to find blogs written by reporters working in Iraq that give viewers a better idea of what the Iraqi people are going through than the major news outlets do. But the focus of blogs tends to be narrow, and the author's voice is often as central to the reporting as is the subject being reported.