Feral Beast: Grim Statistics: kill the messenger

Monday, July 2, 2007

Grim Statistics: kill the messenger

We are now into the second half of 2007, and the risks of reporting are increasing. So far this year, 50 journalists and 8 fixers have been killed, 125 journalists and six fixers jailed, plus 66 cyberdissidents held in detention, according to the NGO
Reporters Without Borders. It is unacceptable that the media death toll is skyrocketing: in all of 2006, 84 were killed, compared to 63 reporter deaths last year and 25 in 2002.
Not all were accidents or 'getting caught in crossfire' while covering combat zones; many victims were intrepid beat reporters targetted while exposing injustices. It's important to stay safe out there. Accordingly, Reporters Without Borders offers the following:

Insurance for freelance journalists

Loan of bulletproof jackets, helmets and personal distress beacons

First-aid kits

A hotline for journalists in danger

The Practical Guide for journalists

Training for journalists on dangerous assignments

No comments:

Feral Beast? Try Lemming

If the press were an animal, what kind of animal would it be? I’ve got my answer. A legion of lemmings, furry and well-intentioned, but ultimately condemned by their nature to follow each other mindlessly off a tall cliff, over the Paris Hilton peak or into the Invade Iraq crevasse. The words “feral beast” certainly wouldn’t come to mind. It’s not particularly accurate or particularly evocative. But that is how the departing British prime minister, Tony Blair, sees journalists: as malicious tormentors who have tried to tear him limb from limb.

--Gal Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Review

“Journalism is a form of cartography,” write Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach of Pew. “It creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.”

"Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It’s not good at solving big problems." Adapted from David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Retrospective : five decades of journalism as reported by CJR

Fake AP Stylebook reminds us: Unless you're doing a story on the Muppets, you are not a gonzo journalist.

"The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk." Poynter Institute, advocating a broader definition of who is a journalist.