Every minute of every day you think you are going to die," said Miguel Gil Moreno de Mora, an Associated Press television cameraman about covering Chechnya. Miguel, 32, died with Kurt Schork, 53, Wednesday after being ambushed by rebel fighters in Sierra Leone. Two other reporters were wounded slightly. Their deaths serve as a poignant reminder of the risks journalists undertake to cover news around the world. Both Miguel and Kurt were experienced correspondents having covered conflict in the Balkans, the Caucuses, and Africa.
Miguel is the 25th AP staffer to die on assignment in the 151-year history organization. However, a glance at the AP memorial page indicates that eight of 25 deaths have been since 1993, showing that risks for journalists have increased as people seek more coverage from the world's "hotspots" and access to conflict has gotten easier.
During the midst of the siege, a memorial was erected in Sarajevo commemorating the journalists who brought to the world the stories of tragedy and hope from that city. The memorial read: "the first casualty when war comes is the truth." However, war is not the only vehicle that crushes free media and expression. Authoritarian and democratic governments alike frequently feel compelled to deny journalists, and therefore the broader public, access to information and the freedom to disseminate it.
In recent weeks in Serbia, Yugoslav President (and indicted war criminal) Slobodan Milosevic shut down the remaining vestiges of independent media when he closed the studios of B2-92 radio and stopped the presses of the Blic newspaper. The move comes in the midst of efforts to ring the country with a series of radio and television transmitters to broadcast Voice of America, the BBC, and Deutsche Welle into the country. Clearly, the truth about Milosevic's rule will not be brought to the Serbian people from within.
Governments are not the only perpetrators of violence against freedom of expression. A few years ago, an Irish journalist was assassinated by criminal gangs for exposing their activities. Clearly, anyone who questions those who hold power, be they legitimate or not, can be a target for retribution.
Some hope exists, but more often than not, the news is dominated by more cases of individuals or groups being denied access to a forum from which to voice their opinions. An Austrian court reached a guilty verdict against an individual who had apparently defamed former Freedom Party leader Jorg Haider. The person had merely pointed out certain statements that Haider had made about minorities and the country's past. This comes on the heels of a verdict of a London ruling that Deborah Lipstadt did not break any laws when she called David Irving "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial."
There can be no doubt that the media plays an important role in shaping the opinions of individuals. Kemal Kurspahic, former editor of Oslobodenje, the Sarajevo newspaper that published every day during the siege, recently spoke at the United States Institute for Peace on how media can be used both to divide people and to unite them. The message was clear: only by permitting and encouraging open debate and free media will truth be allowed to flow. Otherwise, the whims of powerful individuals will prevail.
The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine this month is running a cover story on James Nachtwey, a Dartmouth alumnus who is a war photojournalist. Let us never forget the risks people like Nachtwey, Mora, and Schork are willing to take to bring us the truth by not neglecting the stories that they are telling. Further, let us not forget that freedoms like those protected in this country by the First Amendment only remain if people are willing to enjoy them entirely, taking the good with the ugly.
