Having had occasion to put my life, rather than just my lunch, on the line for journalism, I was interested in this graph from Windows on the Media reflecting on the relative safety of journalism as a profession.
Yes, but…
Especially in the world of international news reporting, the number of people travelling on assignment is really rather small and the risks – it seems to me – really rather large. I can think of half a dozen acquaintances and friends who died in Iraq in the space of a couple years. Friends who’ve reported from Afghanistan have been kidnapped and been lucky to escape with their lives.
These voluntary risks pale behind those involuntarily faced by journalists working in countries like Iraq, the Philippines, Russia and other places where to do one’s job with absolute integrity requires courage verging on the suicidal.
4 responses to “How dangerous is journalism?”
I think that average is ruined by the many thousands that call themselves journalists, but don’t actually do any.
Adrian,
Thanks for criticizing! The point of this article was to show the irrelevance of our journalists’ mourning the deaths of a Samir Kassir or an Anna Politovskaya as if they were colleagues, not to say that all reporters are safe.
In liberal democracies, as Dave Lee’s saying, journalists barely take any risk (ok, not their fault, that’s not what they’re paid for).
In some other countries, some journalists are more like fighters for the freedom of speech, working for a political ideal. I see not commonalities between the two, except for the writing articles part.
As for international reporters, as one of my j’list friend tells me, risk is part of the job and probably one of the reason they choose to go on assignment in unsafe areas.
I took your point, but I think in aggregating the figures you’re performing a little sleight of hand.
just wondering where the french cheese workers come into this