Everone nowadays is accustomed to seeing pictures of wars within hours, if not minutes of their breaking out. The journalists who bring these images to the world have in the last decade paid a high price for their dedication and professionalism. Perhaps this is a refection of the greatly increased power of the media in the collecting of vivid and immediate evidence of events that evil men would prefer no one saw.
The shooting death on Friday of a Japanese video-journalist on the streets of Yangon was almost certainly the work of Myanmar police. None of the demonstrators had weapons. There is also strong circumstantial evidence that Kenji Nagai was deliberately targeted. Only the day before, he had been among the handful of foreign journalists who were threatened when paramilitary units raided their hotels.
The killings of journalists and reporters have been increasing alarmingly. A record seemed set in 2004 when 129 reporters, cameramen and other media people were killed, many of them by police, soldiers or terrorists who singled them out specifically. The following year the death toll had fallen to just 41 but in 2006 a new bloody record was established. No fewer than 155 media people died — in some cases simply disappearing — while doing their job. Around 64 of these victims were in Iraq, including many Iraqi journalists, bringing the death toll since the March 2003 US invasion to at least 139.
This is a reprehensible record for countries across the world from Israel to the Philippines, from Russia to South America. Journalists are easy targets. In order to do their jobs properly they need to put themselves in harm’s way. Far too often, they pay a heavy price for their commitment. We viewers want to see the action — but from the safety of our armchairs. More and more we are forced to see what price the media pays for providing these pictures — the camera picture slumping to the ground as the operator is hit, or the flak-jacketed reporter collapsing as he clutches a microphone.
In Europe and North America, governments merely huff and puff about freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Japanese have dispatched a deputy foreign minister to demand the Myanmar authorities investigate Kenji Nagai’s death and punish any soldier or policeman responsible. Few seriously expect the military junta to oblige. The Japanese government is going through the motions of protest. The Yangon authorities, whatever their public regrets, will — like repressive regimes and other sinister organizations worldwide — be quietly pleased that yet another bloody warning has been sent to any other journalists who may wish to be impartial recorders of important and momentous events.
Perhaps the only heartening factor in this annual slaughter of those who record the news is that there seems to be no shortage of brave professionals ready to fill the available jobs.
