I spoke with Sebba in Washington, D.C. while she was in the U.S. promoting her latest book, a biography of Wallis Simpson.

You said you're revising Battling for News to have a more pessimistic conclusion.

When I left the book, it seemed as if women had broken down all the barriers. They were reporting sport, and finance, and war. It was all going to be fine from here on. But when I actually looked at it again, after a gap of 20 years, I had a much less rosy view of the whole picture.

Why was that?

Because women are targets. Lara Logan, particularly, is one of the stories.

There aren't carefully drawn battle zones anymore. The war is right in the center of town. There's 24-hour news reporting, so it's not as if you write your story and then, like Martha Gellhorn, go back to your hotel and have a drink with the boys and it's all over 'til another day. You don't have time to develop an idea, to go to places; you're just expected constantly to update the story without having the time to work out what the real story is.

So that puts men and women under pressure. But women are targeted more, because a lot of these conflicts are now in Muslim countries, who see Western women wearing provocative--that's their word, not mine--provocative clothes, and therefore, they feel, the West has to be taught a lesson, that they're fair targets, fair game. And I think that's why the Lara Logan story is so terrifying for women.

The other thing I've learnt is that male editors, and particularly television editors, are exploiting women. More women than men graduate in media studies. They don't know how to find a fixer; they don't know about weaponry; they don't know where is safe, where is not safe--they just want to prove themselves. So they might end up in a really dangerous trouble spot without adequate preparation. And because you're hardly paid, it's often the young, inexperienced girls who are prepared to do it. And the editors are prepared to exploit them because it makes exciting news. It's vicarious thrill. You see a gorgeous woman on your screens in a flak jacket, and it's almost like entertainment.

Now, I'm not saying at all that Lara Logan comes into that [uninformed] category, please, she was a really experienced journalist. But I still think what happened to her is a sign of why it's so difficult to work in these current conflicts--because a Western woman like that is perceived as doing something that's not acceptable to all their cultural beliefs. So they get this frenzy whipped up, and you get separated from your TV crew, your support crew, and there is nothing you can do.

Hollywood Reporter ran an article on Logan about a month ago. She has two young children, one is four and one is two. Based on what she has said, it seemed she had scaled back the degree to which she is operating in conflict zones. You can't blame her for saying that, obviously, given what happened and the fact that she has children.