Dying to Bring You the News

Posted on August 27, 2004

According to the The Guardian, the number of journalists and media staff killed in the Iraq War has now reached 51, after the death of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni. The International News Safety Institute released the figures and appealed to all combatants to "recognize the neutrality of the news media and allow them to go about their business free from harm or threat." Unfortunately, that plea is unlikely to be heeded -- especially by terrorists who continue to kidnap journalists. Kidnapping seems to have become a weekly occurrence in Iraq. And what's really odd is the fact that in this war, it is the journalists who are the most attractive targets.

The death of Daniel Pearl was shocking, not only because of the brutality and injustice of the murder, but also because he was a journalist just trying to do his job. The current breed of terrorists is nothing like the terrorists who hijacked planes in the 70's. Perhaps realizing that they needed the cooperation of the journalists in order to get their demands made known to the world at large, terrorists -- generally speaking -- agreed that it didn't really help their cause to behead the guy trying to cover the story. 63 journalists were killed in Vietnam, and the number of media casualties in the 17 months since the invasion of Iraq is quickly approaching that number.

Of course, being a war correspondent is a dangerous business. It's easy to get killed or injured in the middle of a war -- even when no one is deliberately targeting you. But this level of violence and torture towards the journalists is like nothing we've seen before. The men and women who are putting their lives on the line everyday in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world are doing civilians a great service. They provide us with needed information about what is happening in the world around us. I think that the least we can do is read what they have to say and take a moment to look at the photos and film clips that are now readily available on the Internet. The BBC has excellent coverage, as does CNN, and the Associated Press, just to name a few. This slideshow from New York Times photographer Warzer Jaff is really exceptional. The photographs of Iraqis loyal to Moktada al-Sadr while holed up inside the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf really capture the flavor of the movement and show Western eyes (especially women) sights they would never be allowed to see, inside of Shia's holiest shrines.

So, next time you're surfing the web to see what Paris Hilton is up to, why not take a few minutes to see what these brave men and women are risking their lives to show you?