A Reporter's Life
Those intrepidly fearless reporters drawn to scenes of carnage and mass unrest must have their news coups. The adrenalin rush, there's nothing quite like it. On the other hand, there's the determination to tell the story as it is, unvarnished and often ugly. As well as the pledge of news craftsmanship to which so many have engaged themselves.A cadre of courageous news-gatherers who deem it their personal responsibility to ensure that the world knows the unvarnished truth. All right, occasionally the truth is varnished with a personal perspective, occasionally goes awry with a political bent, an apprehension of matters not being quite what they purport to be.
Reporters, being as human as anyone else, are occasionally led astray. Overall, their function in society cannot be underestimated. We depend upon them to give us the information we cannot procure any other way. The public wishes to be informed. We have a right to be informed. Reporters have a duty to perform, and they relish it, while we value their contribution.
Particularly as they fall prey so often, so troublingly often, to that malignancy of killing the messenger. Abductions and warnings. Kidnappings and murders. Settling a score. Silencing the curious. Setting an example. Somehow, those intrepid reporters continue to feel it their duty to society to probe and question and report on their findings.
Yet they're often inclined, singly and as a group to reaching inconclusive findings. Or corrupted reportage; they're as gullible as anyone. And look at news reportage from certain areas, from certain countries and you see ugly bias. That's life. We all have our inner discriminations that alter the thought process.
But the fact is, one news reporter lost to war and revenge and abduction and murder is one too many. They're vulnerable in pursuit of their craft. Society owes them much. But like soldiers in a battlefield society is incapable of protecting them.
And there is the sad example of so many reporters whose lives have been forfeit by their adherence to their craft. The outrage that viewers felt of the video glorying in the murder of Daniel Pearl, for example, is an indelible reminder of the reality facing dedicated reporters. Now there is the British journalist Alan Johnston, whom Hamas keeps promising to have freed.
He was spirited away from his base in Gaza three months ago by the Army of Islam, demanding for his release that of a Palestinian-born cleric, considered to be al-Qaeda's European-based spiritual leader. They have a cause, these terrorists, bent on jihad and will not be dissuaded. Reason over passion? Not likely.
"If we do not reach an agreement and the situation worsens for us, we will have to turn to God and have no choice but to slit the throat of the journalist", promised a masked spokesman.
The god of Islamic terrorism demands no less.
Labels: Middle East, Political Realities, Religion
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, June 21, 2007
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