From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 3/11/2007 9:47 AM

When a journalist dies, we are all responsible

It's time for real action against regimes that stand idly by when reporters are killed, says one of Fleet Street's most distinguished former editors
Harold Evans
Sunday March 11, 2007

Observer
The price of truth has gone up grievously. We pay every week with the life of a reporter, a cameraman, a support worker.

Unless the life is that of a well-known Western correspondent, the world barely notices. Just four months after the horrific 2002 kidnapping and beheading of the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl, Tim Lopes of Globo TV suffered the identical fate without a similar outcry: he had been investigating drugs and under-age sex in a Rio de Janeiro slum.

The first shocking thing is just how many are dying. The International News Safety Institute, a coalition of media organisations, press freedom groups, unions and humanitarian campaigners, calculates that if we include all news media personnel - translators, fixers, office staff, drivers - no fewer than 1,000 have died in the last 10 years.

The second shocking thing is to learn how many of them were murdered, most of them local beat reporters whose names do not resonate in the media.

The majority of journalists' deaths are not bad luck. They are planned assassinations. They have been targeted, sought out for death at home for a very simple reason: they did their jobs of seeking the truth. Rarely do these local crimes attract international attention.

The sensational murder in Moscow of Anna Politkovskaya, investigator of abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya, provoked international outrage, but most of the journalists die in anonymity.

And the price of murder has gone down. Almost eight out of 10 of the killers have never been investigated, let alone prosecuted, convicted and punished.

What can be done? The cause is not hopeless. Ireland set an example. Following the outcry in 1996 over the killing of Veronica Guerin, the government devised new laws to indict the leaders of the gang who organised her murder.

In 2005 Mexico's President Vicente Fox responded to protests by appointing a special prosecutor to investigate violence against journalists. Brazil convicted the killer of Tim Lopes on a five to four jury vote and he was sentenced to 28 and a half years in prison.

All those states that concede immunity to the wrongdoers live in the real world. They expect to be taken seriously; they ask for aid and protection for their citizens abroad. They are beneficiaries of trade agreements, of support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and UN aid organisations.

They value their membership of the United Nations. The UN should have a central register of unsolved crimes against members of the media, but the UN itself cannot be left to follow through. A journalist who works for a daily newspaper in Iran testifies that UN organisations 'are too conservative; they don't want to confront the government. They say the government is sensitive'.

The very fact a government is sensitive is, of course, the point. The nerve should be pressed hard. Effectively that will have to be done by individual states and NGOs. They must start holding immunity states responsible for their negligence and, in many cases, complicity. Any state that consistently fails to investigate and prosecute murder and violence against media personnel should forfeit access, privileges and aid. By the same token, these 'iniquity states' should face a persistent international campaign of publicity - not once a year, but every time they acquiesce or sanction the murder of a journalist.

There are two purposes here. One is to hold them up to shame. The other purpose of relentlessly focusing attention on what happens after a killing is to sustain the brave protesters, to mark out their lives as significant. Memo to every news editor: report and follow up.

This brings me to the final point: the paramount importance of how the press justifies its freedom. Protest is required, but performance is key. Ethan Bronner, deputy foreign editor of the New York Times, had it right when he said: 'Journalists have to make it clear they matter by raising the standards of their work.' It is our principal defence in sustaining public support.

We in the press need to ask why - despite the sacrifices and courage - public opinion polls in many places go along with the judgment of the maverick Senator Alan Simpson that the media enjoys a reputation 'lower than quail crap'.

On World Press Freedom Day this May, we should remind the critics, but also ourselves, of the sacrifices represented by the 1,700 journalists whose names are inscribed on the Freedom Forum memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

We should honour them by resolve and rebuke. By the resolve to keep faith ourselves with their best aspirations, and to be forthright in rebuking those who carelessly and ceaselessly do not. Every time a reporter anywhere slants the facts, writes a story to fit his preconception, allows the unclouded face of truth to suffer, he betrays Guerin as surely as she was betrayed by her society.

Every time a journalist anywhere foments factional hatred, he shames the memory of Abdi Ipekci, editor-in-chief of Milliyet, then Turkey's most influential newspaper. He was the first victim of Mehmet Ali Agca, who is currently seeking parole after attempting to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Every time a news organisation puts excessive profit before excellence - is 20 per cent not enough? - it betrays all the names on the memorial. Every time a photographer grossly exploits private grief, he betrays the families of all the victims. Every time a journalist in America abuses the first amendment, he betrays all those around the world who have to struggle for half the freedom. Every time a news organisation closes its eyes to the world - and I think of the television networks shutting so many bureaux - it betrays those who gave their lives in the course of letting us see.

· Sir Harold Evans was editor of the Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981. He has written various books on history and journalism. Since 2001, Evans has served as editor-at-large of the Week magazine and is a contributor to the Guardian and BBC Radio 4. The INSI report - Killing the Messenger: the deadly price of news - was published on 6 March and is available from newssafety.com.

The brave

Sander Thoenes
Age: 30 Job: Reporter

Dutch FT reporter Thoenes was murdered in East Timor in September 1999, probably by Indonesian soldiers.

Tim Lopes
Age: 51 Job: TV reporter

Lopes, a Brazilian , was tortured, executed and set on fire in June 2002 in Rio. He was working undercover.

Anna Plitkovskaya
Age: 48 Job: Reporter

Politkovskaya was found shot dead in 2006. She was critical of the Russian authorities and the Chechen conflict.

Samir Kassir
Age: 45 Job: Columnist

Kassir, a staunch opponent of Syria's hegemony in Lebanon, was killed in Beirut in June 2005 by a car bomb.

Deida Hydara
Age: 58 Job: Reporter

Hydara, a prominent Gambian journalist, was shot in December 2004. He was sharply critical of a tough new press law passed that month.

Daniel Pearl
Age: 38 Job: Bureau chief

Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, was abducted in Karachi, Pakistan, in January 2002. He was murdered shortly afterwards.

Martin Adler
Age: 47 Job: Cameraman

Adler, a Swede, was shot in the back and killed at a rally in south Mogadishu, Somalia, in June 2006.

Veronica Guerin
Age: 36 Job: Reporter

Irish journalist Guerin was shot in Dublin in June 1996. She received death threats after covering drug deals.

Martin O'Hagan
Age: 51 Job: Reporter

O'Hagan, who worked for the Sunday World, was shot by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland in September 2001.

Paul Klebnikov
Age: 41 Job: Editor

Klebnikov, editor-in-chief of Forbes's Russian edition, was shot in July 2004. He had written stories on corruption.

Waldemar Milewicz
Age: 47 Job: TV Reporter

Polish film-maker Milewicz was killed along with his colleague Mounir Bouamrane in a drive-by shooting south of Baghdad in May 2004.

Hrant Dink
Age: 53 Job: Editor

Dink was shot in Istanbul in January this year. He campaigned for Armenian rights and founded Argos, a newspaper for Turkish Armenians.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2030946,00.html