Reporting - an increasingly dangerous duty
Posted: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 2:19 PM
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Tel Aviv, Israel
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Tel Aviv Bureau Chief
The world used to be a blank page for the press. We came, we saw, we reported. We felt protected by our notebooks and pens, and by every government’s self-interest – it didn’t do any good to harm the press.
But look at the list of no-go areas for journalists today.
Iraq is mostly out apart from military embeds and limited forays from heavily-guarded compounds.
Reporters based in Kenya who normally cover Somalia refuse to go there, saying it is too anarchic and dangerous. Sudan won’t let reporters travel to Darfur, nor will Zimbabwe permit coverage of its troubles.
In earlier days journalists would probably have ventured there anyway, trusting in luck or hoping to slip in and out under the radar. But today we’re no longer perceived as uninvolved messengers; we’ve become targets. In Gaza foreign reporters are routinely kidnapped while the Palestinian government pleads helplessness.
All these places have managed to scare reporters away by threatening to kidnap them, beat them or kill them, and sometimes all three. And that’s without mentioning the killing of reporters in the former Soviet Union and parts of Latin America and Asia.
I’ve particularly been thinking about this since foreign reporters based in Israel and Palestinian journalists in Gaza demonstrated Wednesday in support of a BBC reporter, Alan Johnston, kidnapped in Gaza six weeks ago. The event made it even clearer how the dangers to reporters have changed.
Dangerous developments
There are two critical and dangerous developments.
The first is in firepower. I used to hide behind trees or walls. Today, a few well-aimed rounds and the tree or wall will be gone.
The second is in spreading anarchy. In Somalia and Gaza the danger comes from thugs loyal to families and parties, not to governments.
They cannot be reasoned with. They either place no value on the life of a reporter, as in Somalia, or too much, as in Gaza. The price his kidnappers are demanding for Alan Johnston, according to Palestinian reporters in Gaza, is $2 million (and that is down from $5 million).
There has been only one reported sign that he is still alive. A British newspaper reported that negotiators, trying to determine whether Johnston was dead or alive, recently passed a message to the kidnappers asking for the name of his cat. It came back – Mombasa. Correct.
That must be some consolation to his family and friends, particularly after a leaflet was distributed last week saying Johnston had been murdered.
But it does little to allay the fears of most reporters, most of whom have decided to no longer report from Gaza.
