The CPJ 2017 annual report: It’s still a grim world

It is still not quite safe for journalists globally. The very important business of informing, educating and entertaining remains a dangerous undertaking. And journalists, as professionals, remain the biggest victims of men with a blocked conscience.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed this once again in its annual report on the global state of the news media released on December 21. Its annual findings are always grim. This year’s report is no exception. Still grim; still chilling.

According to the CPJ, “at least 42 journalists were killed in the course of their work in 2017.” Journalism is the only profession in the world in which doing one’s job to the best of one’s ability is regarded as a crime by those who believe that the truth unexposed is the truth that does not exist. They are mistaken, of course, but that does not change the lot of hundreds of foreign and indigenous journalists trapped every year in the hostile environment of official, group and individual intolerance. That the killer stalks the journalist at every turn is pretty unsettling, I tell you.

There is no uniformity among nations and governments on the treatment of reporters. But it is hardly surprising that the lot of reporters continues to be progressively worse in developing countries. Although many of the countries are bad, some are naturally worse than the others. The CPJ analysis indicates that three countries stand out this year as the worst places for the reporter who is trying to do an honest job in accordance with his conscience and the demands of his profession. They are Iraq, Syria and Mexico - in that unholy order of intolerance of news and views that fail to describe the pork marks on the faces of their big men as beauty spots.

The names of these countries always invoke a chill. They are usually at the top of the league of countries that proudly wear the badge of intolerance of the nosey pokers. The CPJ report shows that Iraq leads with the killing of eight journalists; Syria comes a close second with seven journalists murdered; while Mexico does not exact trail behind them. Six journalists were murdered in that country last year. The reporters committed the same crime: they were doing nothing more than their professional job in the service of humanity.

Note that the three countries were the worst among the league of the truly bad. Journalists were murdered in many other countries too for the same reasons. Where they were not murdered, they were arrested, tried and found guilty of what was criminalised after the fact. They were herded into jails where their days are darker than their nights. Horrendous.

The CPJ is alarmed, as indeed it should be, by the fact that eight of the journalists killed world wide this year were women. Joe Simon, executive director of the CPJ, said matter-offactly: “We are alarmed by this high number, and note that some of the most prominent journalists killed last year were women…”

This annual serving of grim statistics from the CPJ speaks to the great irony that tends to define human behaviour. It raises a fundamental question: How come the age of the greatest enlightenment in human history is also the age with dark spots on the canvass of human progress? Journalists in developed, as well as in developing countries, have had a long and blood-spattered history of being treated as enemies by those with calloused hands on the levers of power. Many countries treated and still treat them at best as necessary irritating mosquitoes buzzing in the ears of the rulers and the important people in the society. Those who make the bad news refuse to listen to the bad news.

I thought it should be possible for us to expect that the world is much wiser now as to what it means to kill the messenger and would treat journalists, not as enemies of the rulers, but their partners and friends in the service of the people. It should be possible for these intolerant important people to appreciate the simple fact that the death of the messenger is not the end of the bad story. If one journalist dies in trying to expose the evil in government or a private company or a political party, another steps in to ensure that while it might be easy to hide perfidy in government and the private sector, burying it is a harder undertaking.

Perhaps, what is more worrisome than the number of the dead is the reason for their death. Most of the journalists who were killed this year dared to step into the field of conflicts. Conflict is endemic in all human societies. Conflict involves at least two opposing sides, each of which claims to be right. Here is where the reporter comes in. He gets into the conflict because his profession obliges him to establish the facts in all such situations and duly inform the rest of the world. The side to the conflict that is displeased by his report instantly finds him guilty of the crime of alleged bias. It kills him. The technical name for this reprisal killing.

The CPJ reports that (I can see the tongue hiding there in its cheek) “the number of journalists singled out for murder in reprisal for their reporting has declined in the past two years, with 17 as of December 15, 2017 compared with 18 in the whole of 2016.” One fewer death is hardly a good enough reason to hope that the situation is improving. Let the committee not fall into the temptation of being less vigilant. So long as reprisal killings go on, even if the rate falls below two in a year, the danger that faces the reporter remains and is no less worrisome.

What is at issue is a determined assault on press freedom. If reporters are denied the freedom to inform and educate the people, the people too are denied the right to know how they are governed. To squash freedom and right is to drag the age of enlightenment all the way back to the dark age of ignorance.

This poses a particular dilemma for the journalist. Conflicts are the staple of the journalistic diet. Conflicts will always attract the curious, the daring and the committed journalist, not just because bad news is a great marketing fare, but more importantly because conflicts, minor or major, are veritable threats to all human communities. The reporter cannot stay away from them because to do so would mean the immoral abdication of his professional duty to inform the people about what is wrong and educate them on the dangers they face.

Perhaps, Iraq, Syria and Mexico need more prayers than condemnation. My heart goes to the 42 journalists killed in the course of doing their duty this year. Their death, regrettable as it is, inspires courage among the living. That is why the reporter has the last word on the gods with feet of mud.