Indigestion in the age of the 24-hour news cycle

I've found I need to go on vacation in order to unwind. It's impossible to do it around the house, where I am chained to this laptop - like it or not. I can't stand to see a headline on the crawl above this page -- there's one now! -- without wanting to pounce on it. And it did not used to be like this.

Twenty-five years ago when I entered the field, we didn't have computers; we had typewriters. Charming, antiquated, loud, clunky, wonderful typewriters. We purists pounded out our thoughts on a manual. I got through college that way. White-out (Liquid Paper) was our friend. When we were done writing articles, we had better things to do - like date, visit with friends and go for walks in the woods.

Nowadays, though, no self-respecting journalist is caught dead spending more than an hour away from her e-mail. I find that I can miss jobs, stories, gossip, you name it if I so much as take a long shower.

That's why I'm so sick at my stomach that I'm ready to leap off the nearest bridge, though I fear doing this might give an unfair advantage to the competition, who would no doubt write about my suicide and therefore grab a front page headline: WIEGLER FINALLY LOSES IT AND CATAPULTS OFF THE GW!

Well, I won't let that happen, of course, because there is Tums, a visit to the GI doc, and rumor has it something called meditation. And I've also heard it's physically possible to pull oneself away from the laptop with enough discipline, or at least a threat from one's boyfriend in the other room.

Getting roughed up by thugs: the new normal?

Anderson Cooper was "roughed up by thugs" this week - as he posted on Twitter - and many now wonder if this is the new normal for journos.

By new normal I mean, any self-respecting scribe will earn his stripes traveling halfway across the world and not flinch if sent into rock-throwing range of a crazed Muslim brother or frantic eighty-year-old democracy-hungry doctor.

Maybe I'm a wimp, but I'll take my journalism work the way I would take any job: without putting my life in danger. I didn't become a cop or firewoman or President of the United States. I am a journalist. I am not required to put my life on the line in order to get to the story.

To see CNN and the New York Times and Fox News and whomever else jockeying for stories and standing space on the square over there in Cairo...well, it's just a little unsettling. More than a little.

There have always been war correspondents. And war photographers. These are noble professions -- but they stand apart from other types of journalism. Ten years ago it wasn't frowned upon to be a good, hardworking journalist who would refuse to put her life on the line.

Nowadays, with the 24-hour news cycle and everyone worrying what blogger will come and take her job away, well, journalists are going out on a limb - and then some.

I was saddened to see David Rohde's name on a news story from Egypt today. Having just read his wife's moving account of his kidnapping by al-Qaeda and emotional return, I figured he'd stay put forever. He'd learned his lesson.

What do I know?

I remember once leaving a message on my outgoing answering machine -- back in 2003 at the start of the Iraqi conflict -- stating that I was off to the Middle East to report. Please don't worry, I stated, and I wouldn't forget to write.

My brother took it seriously and was frantic.

"How could you do that to me? To the family?!" he shouted.

I thought it was funny. "What? You wouldn't honestly think I would do such a thing, would you?"

"I don't know - yeah?"

I thought a moment. It was a question I never forgot - and one that my profession is, more and more, answering on my behalf.