Another dangerous and bloody year for journalists abroad was signaled in early 2012 by casualties in Syria, including American reporters Anthony Shadid and Marie Colvin. The risks taken on behalf of the reading and viewing public are annually brought home at the OPC’s Awards Dinner by the lighting of our ceremonial candle honoring and remembering fallen colleagues.
This year, the candle lighter is Joao Silva, a South African photographer, who lost both legs to a mine in Afghanistan while shooting for The New York Times in October 2010. He has returned to assignments for the Times while undergoing continued rehabilitation.
The dangers of reporting in much of the world are evident in figures compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists. These show that killings of newspeople rose beginning in the early 2000s to annual levels that since have ranged from 42 to 74. With 14 targeted deaths by late March, 2012 is on pace to be a depressingly mortal year.
Journalist jailings, meanwhile, jumped to a new high of 179 last year, according to the Committee. Ten years earlier, the number had been 118. A handful at any given time are reported to be “missing.”
Marie Colvin, speaking in 2010 at a Fleet Street church memorial to lost journalists and support staff, noted that war correspondents were of consistent stock even as media changed.
“You can’t get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you,” she said. “The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people, be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen.
“We do have that faith because we believe … we do make a difference.”