The murders of war correspondents James Foley and Steven Sotloff have resonated with a particular horror in American newsrooms. Even if your main job is covering some small-town parking dispute, not risking your life as a free lancer in a field of slaughter, journalists feel that they're part of a community that transcends beats and news organizations. That community transcends political boundaries as well, and all of us should pay attention to the world war against journalists.
Frank Smyth of the Committee to Protect Journalists writes that the back-to-back videotaped beheadings of journalists is "unprecedented" in the advocacy group's 33-year history. But he points out that only three years ago, the "decapitated remains" of a Mexican journalist named Maria Elisabeth Macias Castro were discovered, along with a note explaining that she had died for her investigative reporting into organized crime. She was one of 75 journalists and media workers killed in Mexico since 1994. (In the United States during that time, there have been three). Mexican journalists continue to work in conditions that make the Obama Administration's hostility to national security reporters seem like minor irritations (not that we should put up with that, either).
Not long ago, working as an investigative reporter in Minneapolis could get you killed. Three editors were murdered between 1934 and 1945, and no one was punished for their deaths. These days, thanks to CPJ and other groups, the targeted killings of journalists are more likely to be recognized as the human rights violations that they are. It's essential for all of us to remember the courage of those who went to bear witness in places few of us would have the interest, or the guts, to go. And to recognize that for so many of our colleagues in other countries, reporting on their own communities can leave them dead on the side of the road. Yet they still do it.
Data from CPJ:
Journalists killed since 1992: 1,073
Journalists and media workers killed in 2014: 52
Their names:
34 journalists killed in 2014: Motive explained
