Deadly profession
Whether you are reading this in print or online, you can be sure that the journalists who put these stories, columns and editorials together have received their fair share of verbal attacks. Most journalists know that, fair or not, extreme criticism comes with the job.
Sometimes, especially for those covering emotioncharged places like court, or photographers covering fires or accidents, it moves beyond anger to threats of violence.
Many journalists will tell you they’ve even been pushed, shoved or occasionally kicked, punched or spat upon, just for doing their jobs. But, at least in this country, journalists aren’t killed for their profession. They are regularly killed in countries like Mexico and Afghanistan.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says the number of journalists targeted and killed for doing their jobs has almost doubled in 2018.
But what is truly alarming is that, this year, for the first time ever, the United States is one of the top five deadliest nations for journalists, according to the group Reporters Without Borders.
Six journalists have died in United States, four of them in a mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Maryland. U.S. President Donald Trump said the Capital Gazette attack, “shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief ... Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.”
Trump has also repeatedly called journalists “enemies of the people.” That, along with the singling out of journalists at rallies and railing on about “fake news” to the point that journalists are attacked by Trump supporters, certainly doesn’t keep reporters, camera people and photographers “free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.”
Time magazine, meanwhile, has gone so far as to name murdered and jailed journalists as their “person of the year” for 2018, including Jamal Khashoggi, who was strangled and dismembered by Saudi agents at a Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey.
Despite being shown clear evidence that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in ordering the killing, Trump has argued, “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t” order the murder, and has said that it was more important for the United States to maintain business relations with the Saudi state than to take any action over the murder.
So all in all, far from a safe and positive world for journalists in 2018, and, most likely, even worse working conditions to come in 2019. The situation hasn’t improved. The skies continue to darken.
And in some countries, even, sadly, the Land of the Free, even presidents seem unaware that their words continue to paint targets on the backs of journalists who are just doing their job.