Risking your life to tell the world
Marie Colvin, a reporter for Britain’s Sunday Times, has been killed in Syria. DEBORAH HAYNES SAYS correspondents play a vital role in war zones.
The world would know a lot less about the brutality of war or the horrors inflicted by secretive regimes against their own people without the work of foreign correspondents. That is why journalists like Marie Colvin chose to put their life in harm’s way and venture into the most dangerous of places to reveal what is going on.
It is not a risk that is taken lightly and every reporter and news editor understands that no story, no matter how important, should be worth dying for. But being on the front line is inherently dangerous, and growing increasingly more so as journalists lose their neutrality and become targets for attack.
Every time a correspondent is sent on assignment he or she will pit the potential dangers of the mission against the reward. Some people are willing to push the boundaries farther than others, but few behave recklessly.
No-one wants to find themselves in trouble, or worse, and then to require other people to put themselves in danger to get them out. However, leaving the safety of your home and the love of your family, stepping on to a plane and venturing into an unfriendly country, always comes with the risk that you might not return or you might suffer injury.
It is not foremost in your mind. If that were the case then you would never walk beyond your front gate. But it is a risk that you are willing to take because you believe that the scenes you will witness and the stories you will hear need to be conveyed to the outside world. This desire to give people who do not have a voice the chance to speak and be heard is the driving force that compels correspondents to go to places when everyone else who can is heading in the opposite direction; that enables them to set aside the concerns of family and friends who worry every moment they are away.
Foreign correspondents play a vital role, a precious role, and one that, without prejudice, informs public opinion around the world. This valuable independent channel of information also increases pressure on governments when they are trying to decide what should or should not be done to help to protect people under attack, or to bring a ruthless dictatorship to justice.
The final dramatic dispatches by Colvin from Homs exposed how shelling by Syrian government troops was responsible for the deaths of women and children – a far cry from the armed militants whom President Assad claims to be targeting.
It remains to be seen whether her words will inspire the international community to take action.
Colvin’s death, however, drives home the extent of the danger that correspondents confront to do their job. Most reporters on the front line experience near misses, but no-one is guaranteed safe passage and, every so often, luck runs out.