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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Mortal Danger and Journalism

From our chapter on mass media:
A few journalists achieve wealth, fame, and glamour. Most do not. They receive modest pay and recognition, and they report from unglitzy places such as courthouses, city halls, and state capitols. Amid recent turmoil in the media industry, they worry about making a secure living. And they sometimes face danger, especially when covering warfare or terrorism.
Unfortunately, there is a new example.  From Global Voices
Marie Colvin and RĂ©mi Olchik were killed last week, when the makeshift media centre they were at in Baba Amr, in Homs, Syria, was attacked. Both were journalists on a mission. She was The Sunday Times' foreign correspondent and he was her photographer.

On Thursday, February 23rd, the world woke up to the news of their death under the debris of the Press center that was targeted by Pro-Assad forces. Both international media outlets and netizens around the world paid homage to the murdered journalists, whose death captured headlines, drawing attention to the plight of Syrians being killed on a daily basis for protesting against the Assad regime.

On Facebook, users created a page called Marie Colvin's Eyepatch, in reference to her left-eye patch from an injury she had received more than 10 years ago while covering the conflict between the government and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
Colvin was an American, who grew up in Oyster Bay, New York and got her degree at Yale.