When reporting becomes ‘hazardous’

According to Time magazine, the following are the most dangerous jobs in America:

1. Logging workers

2. Fishers and related fishing workers

3. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers

4. Roofers

5. Trash and recycling collectors

6. Iron and steel workers

7. Truck and sales drivers

8. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers

9. First-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers

10. Grounds maintenance workers

The list is based on workplace fatalities and information from the 2016 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries.

Those might be the deadliest jobs when it comes to accidents or on-the-job deaths, but sometimes the definition of a dangerous job isn’t so black-and-white.

For example, being a police officer would be considered a dangerous job because of the situations officers are put in on a regular basis. Dangerous doesn’t always mean deadly. It could mean being in a situation where one could suffer some type of harm.

Add to that list, the job of a journalist. In today’s culture of “fake news,” where journalists and news outlets are looked at with a critical eye, it’s becoming common to hear of assaults on reporters.

According to U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, 38 journalists faced physical attacks in 2019, five were killed in 2018, 46 faced physical attacks in 2017 and 55 reporters have been attacked while covering protests since 2017.

While the number of journalists who faced physical attacks declined from 2017 to 2019, 38 is still too many.

As a result of violence toward journalists, the National Newspaper Association President Matthew Adelman, publisher of the Douglas (Wyoming) Budget, issued a call for civility and respect for journalists as they do their jobs.

This action followed the release of a news report about a reporter in Chattooga County (Georgia), who was attacked while covering a local meeting, according to the Publishers Auxiliary newspaper.

Cassie Bryant, a reporter with All of Georgia, an Internet publication, was covering a county commission meeting, when the wife of a commissioner, who was apparently upset with the publication’s coverage, poured a soda over the reporter’s head.

As a result Bryant became the victim of battery.

The wife claimed to have tripped, which, she said, caused the soda to be poured on Bryant’s head. However, the police report quoted witnesses as hearing the woman say, “She deserved it.”

Adelman said the incident was a sobering reminder that journalists at all levels of news coverage can draw violent responses to their stories — even at an event as routine as the county budget meeting Bryant was covering, the Publishers Auxiliary story said.

“We are seeing a rise in attacks,” Adelman said. “National news may focus upon atrocities committed on journalists in other countries and let us think that our tradition of free press protects community journalists. But the committee to Protect Journalists says that 1,373 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992. We must be concerned when our domestic tensions wind up focusing on reporters who are simply doing their jobs. NNA is calling upon journalists to maintain their professional detachment as they stick to the facts and leave their opinions to the editorial pages, and upon public servants to remember that it is our job to cover their work.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Though journalism is not on the “most dangerous jobs list,” working in that field comes with its own set of problems.