Stacy Sullivan, for example, who covered the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo for the New York Times Magazine, was suspected of sleeping with her primary source in the Kosovo Liberation Army -- how else could she have gotten that access? "Would that I was having as much romance as the press corps believed I was," she laughs. "The rumor quickly turned into 'common knowledge' and spread among the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army. My source, his wife and I just laughed, but I think many who covered the war still believe I slept my way into the story."

We all romance our sources in some way -- men do it at least as much as women, though they might refer to it as "schmoozing." Men, for example, freely engage in valuable all-night drinking sessions with male sources -- standard business practice -- while women often do not. Sometimes it's because they aren't invited; more often it's because we worry about the impression it might make were we to join in. The developing world is particularly challenging. "In countries where women have very limited roles, just standing there asking questions is unusual enough," says the Los Angeles Times' Anne-Marie O'Connor, who spent 15 years covering wars in Central and South America. "The goal is for your sources to respect you. You want them to view you as something of an honorary man."

Men in patriarchal cultures are fascinated by women journalists -- and disarmed by us. We're tough. We hike like the guys do under a beating hot sun. We look men in the eye when we speak. We wear perfume and a bit of makeup if we feel like it; we're also known to smoke, drink and, at times, laugh loudly. We're not normal by their estimation of normal. If we become honorary men, it's only because we lack power in a male world and so are less threatening to the arms trader, guerrilla leader or president we're hoping will spill his guts.

I'm thankful there are enough women reporters and photographers out there to provide some counsel and support. Sadly, Kogan seems not to have found them. To me, in fact, the oddest part of her book is the absence of women in almost any context. She seems to have met a few women who could have served as role models or mentors. The book describes several encounters with older, prominent and quite supportive women journalists, including the Times' Lorch, who offered Kogan guidance and a bit of mother-henning. So what happened? "Maybe no one liked her," a friend of mine suggests -- a woman photojournalist who herself was short on mentors. She's half-joking but, given the competition among photojournalists, not to mention among women in general, this wouldn't surprise me. Another uncomfortable reality: Young, attractive, enthusiastic women journalists often aren't very popular among slightly older ones, for the same reasons they aren't popular in any other profession in which women have had to claw their way to the top. Sometimes this is the result of sexual rivalry, but it's just as likely to be annoyance at witnessing their long-gone naiveté in a younger woman or the complex feelings that one-time professional "exceptions" have when they're suddenly sharing the field with others.

But just as the foreign press corps has many kind, responsible men, there are myriad vibrant, dynamic women correspondents and photographers of all ages who embrace the job's rough-and-tumble without pretending they have a penis, who are "hard" but also capable of expressing compassion, who don't dislike the women coming up and instead watch out for them.

I'm grateful to the women who took me under their wing, pointing out how nice those khakis and that sensible, and loose, white T-shirt looked on me, sharing their contacts and giving me assignments. Women, not men, taught me how to interview soldiers and how to hide, and then run, when someone is shooting at you. Most of all, they didn't let me quit when it all felt impossible, because, they told me, journalism needed smart, courageous women willing to dash off to who-knows-where against the advice of just about everyone to witness what most people will never know firsthand. The lessons they taught me have made me a better and more responsible journalist, and a stronger person.

Maybe if Kogan had met a few more of those women, she wouldn't have felt compelled to rely on men for guidance, support, love -- for everything. Meanwhile, the subjects of her work -- the war orphans, rebels, drug addicts and gang girls -- get barely a gloss other than when they're useful to further her own story. That, surely, is the saddest aspect of "Shutterbabe."

Someday, I hope, a book will be written by a young woman foreign correspondent whose self-worth, whatever her sideline dalliances, will be found in the devotion she brings to her job; who sees covering war as a kind of privilege and thrives on its ultimate challenge: trying to communicate the incomprehensible -- violence, famine, war crimes, human rights abuses -- to a jaded Western audience that by now has seen it all. For whatever extreme gene may have brought us to this job, it's our commitment to the stories that keeps most of us here.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"