There are times when I get just a little too cozy sitting in my self-crafted cubbyhole at a desk with my laptop, banging out copy for commentary on the great issues of the day.
It takes a blunt reminder such as the Newseum of Washington, D.C. offers up to remind me that some people literally put their lives on the line in order to get some sense of truth and information out to the public.
THE MUSEUM WITH ties to the company that gave us the U.S.A. Today newspaper maintains the monument as a tribute to the press and journalism by listing the names of journalists who were killed while trying to do their job.
More names, about six dozen, were added to the memorial on Monday.
While some people are focusing their attention on the latest names of reporter-types killed in Iraq (and others find it interesting that a reporter for the Daily Egyptian, the student newspaper at Southern Illinois University, managed sadly enough to qualify), the names that caught my attention were those of reporter-types who got caught up in the gunfire around Ciudad Juarez.
The drug wars that have made the Mexico side of the U.S./Mexico border a hostile place (and have some paranoid types willing to lambaste the entire country for the actions of a few border towns) have even managed to take out a few reporters.
SOME GOT CAUGHT up in gunfire, which makes them innocent victims.
But then, there are people like Armando Rodriguez, who wrote for El Diario in the city named for famed Mexican President Benito Juarez and tried to write accurately about the degree to which the violence had run amok.
But he was shot to death last November while sitting in his car with one daughter, while waiting for another so he could try to drive them safely to school.
Five reporter-types working in Mexico had their names added to the memorial, which officials note makes 2008 the most deadly year in at least five years when it comes to newsgathering activity.
IT STILL LAGS behind the number of reporters killed in Iraq while trying to cover combat and violence. But it is tragic to know that such activity could take place so close to the United States.
It also makes me wonder if I could do their job. I’m not sure. The closest I have come to encountering such a mentality are the times when I have entered prisons to talk to people for one story or another.
In each of those instances, I was there among people who might have had thoughts of doing some harm to me, but they didn’t. And I also knew I could walk away at the end of the day.
Reporters working under these type of conditions are trying to cover life under circumstances where most sense of reason has been tossed out the window. That is what is worthy of our respect more than anything else.
PEOPLE ARE TRYING to do a job gathering news under conditions that most people of common sense would refuse to put up with. They also are trying to get at a sense of “truth” in their reporting, even though many of the people they write about are not the least bit cooperative and would just as soon see them fail professionally.
These reporter-types are worthy of our highest levels of respect.
-30-
EDITOR’S NOTE: There are certain types of correspondents who are willing to put themselves (http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2009/03/30/ap-state-il/d978isl83.txt) at risk out of a sense that getting a story correct is a noble goal in and of itself.
0 comments:
Post a Comment