The Killings of Journalists Never Seems to End

Effective journalism is a driver of social consciousness in any society and attacks against it are a calculated attempt at eradicating social values. Journalists become vulnerable for the reason that, unlike many other professions, journalism has the most stringent of ethics and standards which include a professional code of ethics” or the “canons of journalism.” The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements drafted by both professional journalism associations and individual broadcast, and online news organizations.

by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne

( January 13, 2016, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) If the monotonous regularity with which journalists are killed throughout the world has been a regular trend over the years, 2015 was one of the most terrifying examples. A Canadian media outlet has recorded that 77 journalists and media workers were killed throughout the world in relation to their work in 2015. Of course, 2014 saw 23 more killed, achieving a grand total of 100, but this decline in 2015 by no means ameliorates the inordinate dangers faced by journalists, which remain constant. The outrage caused by the tragic attack carried out in Paris on January by Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, where 12 people were brutally murdered, including nine magazine staff, lasted throughout 2015 and deepened the resolve of the Fourth Estate to continue defending free expression and free press. What followed saw a global trend where the Charlie Hebdo incident became a rallying point for free expression advocates around the world.

April 20 saw the murder by air strike of journalist and TV presenter Mohammed Shamsan and three other staff members of Sana’a-based television station Yemen Today. The attack was carried out as part of a military campaign by a Saudi-led coalition of countries against Houthi rebels loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former Yemeni president. In nearby Syria, which maintains the record for being an extremely dangerous and deadly country in the world for journalists, seven journalists were murdered last year.

In Bangladesh, four secular bloggers and a publisher were hacked to death by religious extremists who pursued a hit list published by Ansar al-Islam, a local affiliate of Al-Qaeda. On July 31, Mexican photojournalist Rubén Espinosa was murdered after he received a spate of threats, as a result of his publishing a compromising photo of Veracruz governor Javier Duarte in 2014. An arrest followed of a convicted felon which was claimed by many as a white wash calculated to prevent a public outcry against Espinosa’s killing. In Brazil, radio journalist Gleydson Carvalho, who was an outspoken reporter and critic of corruption was murdered while he was on air, as well as four other journalists in various parts of the country. None of the five cases from 2015 have been brought to resolution or judicial determination.

In August, a disturbing trend emerged in the United States of targeting journalists for publicity, when assailants sought publicity on social media for their murder of journalists. This trend started when TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were murdered on August 26 during a live broadcast in Virginia. They were killed by a former colleague who later shot himself during the ensuing police chase.

Philippines, similar to Brazil, saw the targeting of journalists who spoke out against corruption, where four journalists were murdered in 2015, resonating a culture of impunity in the country where more than a hundred journalists have been killed over the past ten years.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that since 1992, 19 journalists have been killed in Sri Lanka. The beats pursued by the victims have been identified as 16% related to corruption issues; 11% relating to cultural issues; 21% on human rights and a whopping 63% related to politics. 11% were attributed to sports related beats and 53% to journalists covering war.

The Economist of Oct 12th 2006, reporting on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist, who was shot dead on October 7th, aged 48, said: “she was brave beyond belief, reporting a gruesome war and a creeping dictatorship with a sharp pen and steel nerves… having discovered democracy and the free press as Soviet power collapsed, her faith was uncompromising and sometimes uncomfortable. Nor was she always easy company. A fondness for both sweeping statements and intricate details sometimes made conversation heavy-going. She was both disorganised and single-minded; that could be unnerving, too. But she enjoyed life”. This epitomises the journalist. Inasmuch as soldiers at war are relentless killing machines, journalists are uncompromising crusaders against corruption and injustice, and both categories pay with their lives.

While various existing codes have some differences, most share common elements including the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent reportage to the public. Like many broader ethical systems, journalism ethics include the principle of “limitation of harm.” This often involves the withholding of certain details from reports such as the names of minor children, crime victims’ names or information not materially related to particular news reports release of which might, for example, harm.

One of the most important features of virtuous journalism is objectivity which is frequently held to be essential to proper journalism. A credible journalist of integrity will always be objective and present facts as they stand, a quality which has had disastrous consequences as seen in the instances given above. In the final analysis, the real worth of a journalist is in the manner in which a report is published. Although it is objectivity that is most critical to a journalist, objectivity and the journalist’s own perception of it may determine his fate at the hands of the assassin.