On the job

Committee to Protect Journalists tabulates bravery

2017 was a record-setting year for journalists facing persecution for doing their jobs.

A report by the Committee to Protect Journalists revealed that an alltime high 262 men and women were imprisoned around the world last year for practicing journalism. This tops the previous record, from 2016, of 259.

In many cases, the journalists were jailed on charges of being “anti-state,” thecommittee found.

The committee found a large percentage of the journalists targeted by authorities in 2017 covered politics, governmentor similar topics.

The report illustrates the problem of journalists being persecuted for working to hold governments accountable to their citizenry. Journalists seeking to reveal the truth about misdeeds and misconduct among government leaders are being tossed behindbars.

More than half the world’s jailed journalists, 51 percent, are in three countries: China, Turkey, Egypt. The latter two countries on that list are, nominally, U.S. allies.

Journalists are not only risking jail to do their work. The report also showed 42 journalists around the world were killed while doing their jobs last year.

Americans too often take a free press for granted. The demonization of journalism not only shows a lack of gratitude for our freedoms, but a lack of understanding of how a free society works ,and stays free.

Journalists play a vital role in three kinds of society: The society based on liberty; the society seeking to build a culture and a system of constitutional liberty; and the society in which there is little freedom and the people are oppressed but yearn to be free. That some journalists risk jail and even death for standing up for free speech, press and thought in closed societies should fill those of us who observe their valor from safe havens with awe.