Press freedoms can’t be taken lightly
By: Hank Kalet
When the news was released late last month that a reporter from The Wall Street Journal had been taken hostage by a group allied with the Taliban, a shiver went down my spine.
Daniel Pearl, 38, has been missing since Jan. 23 when a group identifying itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty said it had abducted the journalist and would kill him within 24 hours if its demands were not met. The deadline later was extended by a day, but there has been no word of Mr. Pearl’s fate.
Mr. Pearl apparently was abducted while working on a story on the connections between the fundamentalist Islamic Jamaat ul-Fuqra group and Richard Reid, the alleged shoe bomber being held in the United States.
Some might say that these are the breaks, that if you choose to work in such dangerous circumstances you must live or die with the consequences.
To some degree, they are right. But we should not be so flip. Journalists like Mr. Pearl who choose to work in war-torn areas do so to ensure that the rest of us know and understand what is going on around the globe.
Journalists have a job to do, one that I rank up there with service in the military, with elected office, with law enforcement and the judiciary, with teachers, doctors and nurses. Journalists whether we are working in Afghanistan, in Washington or in South Brunswick keep our society informed. We collect and disseminate the information that allows us to make decisions about our lives, that help us understand what our government is doing, what our military is doing, what is happening in our neighborhoods and at the highest reaches of power.
I’m lucky. I work here in the United States, in suburban central New Jersey. Mine is a relatively safe situation.
But in many places around the globe, this commitment to the public good has led to arrest, torture and death. At least two journalists have been killed so far this year, according to the Freedom Forum, and at least 47 were killed last year. A number of these deaths occurred in war-torn regions, where journalists are putting themselves on the line daily to get the news out to the rest of the world. But far too many 37 according to the Committee to Protect Journalists appear to have been killed by groups hostile to the work they were doing.
"Most of the journalists who were killed last year … were not covering combat," according to the committee. "They were murdered in reprisal for their reporting on official corruption and crime in countries such as Bangladesh, China, Thailand, and Yugoslavia."
Here is a sampling:
In Colombia, which has been wracked by a civil war, journalists have been "frequent targets of execution, abduction and assault by entities across the political spectrum, including left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary units, as well as organized crime figures associated with illicit drug trafficking," according to the Freedom Forum. "Death threats have forced many other journalists to flee Colombia." Two other Colombian journalists were killed last year.
Guatemalan radio host Jorge Mynor Alegría Armendáriz was shot to death after receiving death threats. The Freedom Forum said he "regularly reported and denounced alleged wrongdoing by district officials and encouraged callers to voice their complaints on his program."
An Irish Catholic investigative journalist was shot to death in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in October. A militant Protestant group claimed responsibility saying the reporter was killed for his work uncovering the Protestant paramilitary underworld.
"Journalists covering the war in Afghanistan showed extraordinary courage, but we should also remember that journalists around the world who uncovered corrupt, illegal acts, and graft at high levels of power were murdered with impunity," said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper in a press release. "Whether the perpetrators are paramilitary groups in Colombia or corrupt officials in Thailand, the message is clear: journalists who report on illegal activities will receive a death sentence."
Journalists here in the United States are relatively lucky. We rarely face death threats and are protected from government intrusion by the Bill of Rights. But that does not mean we can take these freedoms lightly.
Current polls show that the public lacks confidence in the news media and would be willing to have the government restrict what we cover and how we cover it. It’s a disturbing trend, especially given the push for secrecy on the part of the Bush administration as it wages its war on terrorism.
We need to remember that journalists play an important role in maintaining our democracy. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Edward Carrington:
"The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Hank Kalet is managing editor of the South Brunswick Post. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]