A Dangerous Pursuit
In a world where most people consume their news safely, perhaps in a comfortable chair on some electronic device, it is worth remembering how dangerous news-gathering has become. Monday’s release of four New York Times staff members in Libya was a powerful reminder of the hazards journalists face around the world.
Anthony Shadid, The Times’s Beirut bureau chief; the photographers Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario; and Stephen Farrell, a reporter and videographer, were released almost six days after they were captured in eastern Libya by forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Turkish diplomats intervened for the journalists and helped get them out of Libya on Monday evening.
That happy outcome is tempered by the fact that so many working journalists are under siege around the world. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 852 journalists have been killed since 1992 when the committee began keeping records. Most recently, in Libya, an online journalist and an Al Jazeera reporter were killed covering fighting near Benghazi.
The Newseum, a museum about the news media in Washington, has reported that more than 160 journalists have died in Iraq since the war began. That is more than both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam combined.
That, in a tragic way, has always been the risk of covering war. But journalists also are increasingly targets of repressive governments — in Russia, Mexico, the Philippines and now in the Middle East. Turkey, which helped our journalists so effectively, has a bad record when it comes to reporters at home.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented more than 50 attacks on the press in Libya since political trouble began last month. Those include 33 detentions, two attacks on news facilities, the jamming of broadcasts and interruption of the Internet. At least six local journalists are missing, and Libyan authorities are still holding four Al Jazeera journalists. Agence-France Presse has reported two journalists missing in Libya.
The BBC reported three of its journalists were beaten, subject to mock executions and forced to witness torture of other Libyans at a military barracks.
News flows so freely and easily these days — on Web sites, on cellphone apps, on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube — that it seems almost effortless.
Getting it still requires old-fashioned courage and perseverance.
