CBS News announced on Tuesday afternoon the horrifying "brutal and sustained sexual assault" Lara Logan, its chief foreign affairs correspondent, suffered while covering the Egyptian uprising in Tahrir Square on Friday.
Also read: CBS: Lara Logan 'Suffered a Brutal and Sustained Sexual Assault and Beating' in Egypt
Why did it take CBS four days to disclose?
A representative for CBS News told TheWrap that the network would not "be commenting beyond the statement" it released Tuesday.
However, it's a legitimate question. As several people have pointed out on my Facebook page, the attack on Logan on the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned (when the bulk of reports out of Cairo showed a jubilant celebration in Tahrir Square and elsewhere) would've been important information to disclose to other media outlets with reporters — particularly women — covering the events in the region that day.
And if not on Friday, the day of her attack, then at least on Saturday, when she was in the air on a flight back to the United States.
The week before, when Logan was detained by Egyptian military police, CBS said that "for security reasons" they would “not be commenting on, or revealing in any way, CBS personnel activity, movement or location." On Tuesday, CBS said there "will be no further comment from CBS News" and "Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time."
Three days before the most recent assault, Logan appeared on Charlie Rose's show to comment on her detainment the week before.
Here’s what she said, via Business Insider:
You try to be smart about these things. Yes, I would go back. It would depend entirely on the circumstances. If I could get an interview with Hosni Mubarak I would go back tomorrow. Am I just going to go back and throw myself into the same circumstances? That doesn't seem smart … It's very hard for me to be away from this story. I feel in one sense like a failure, professionally. I feel like I failed because I didn't deliver. And I take that responsibility very seriously. Fundamentally it's in my blood to be there.
And fundamentally, it's CBS' responsibility to let other reporters know about an attack on one of their own — for everyone's safety.