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| Scarlet
Letters |
| In
the Performance of His Duty |
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It
is not just soldiers who risk their lives in defense of freedom.
--
SPJ president-elect Robert Leger, editorial page editor of the Springfield
(Mo.) News-Leader |
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All around the world, people are mourning Danny Pearl. President Shrub
called his death a tragedy and is reconsidering U.S. policy of only rescuing
American government officials in hostage situations. Journalists everywhere
are mourning him as a martyr to our cause.
And the general consensus among the public seems to be that he is the first
American in history who deserved to die for doing his job.
Unfortunately, it's not just the uneducated who have absolutely no concept
of what journalism is who believe this. Yesterday afternoon, reporters
in my own newsroom stated they believe Pearl had "no business" going to
Kandahar when his poor little wife was expecting a child.
Here are the facts: Daniel Pearl was the Wall Street Journal's south Asia
bureau chief. Pearl declined to go to Afghanistan to cover the war because
of his wife's pregnancy. According to the Washington Post, Pearl's abduction
took place after months of planning, of false identities and leads to trick
Pearl into a place where he could be kidnapped, on his way to an interview
at a Karachi restaurant with a cleric. Pearl was investigating the background
of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber who tried to blow up an American commercial
flight.
The International Press Institute keeps a running tally of journalists
killed worldwide. Including Pearl, there have been seven murdered journalists
in 2002, and it's only February. Last year, 55 journalists were killed,
including the group murdered in Afghanistan during the war, a freelance  photographer
killed in the World Trade Center attack and the reporter for the tabloid
The Sun who died from an anthrax attack.
Usually, journalists get killed in Third World countries when they get
too close to exposing corruption and murder by their own governments or
the cartels that operate as governments in South America. The Americas
are by far the most dangerous places in the world for journalists - 21
of the 55 journalists killed in 2001 were killed in South America, including
two murdered near the U.S. border as they tried to expose corruption in
the anti-drug patrols. Eleven died in Colombia alone.
But you don't have to be a globe-trotting international journalist to get
in the line of fire. Just a few months ago, a young rookie journalist at
a Texas newspaper was sent to a fire. It's the sort of B-page story we
all have covered from time to time. Only on arriving at the scene, the
journalist found herself ducking bullets - the fire was set as a suicide,
and the man inside the house was shooting at the police and firefighters.
She was seriously injured, and her photographer was grazed.
Right here in my area, we have East St. Louis. No matter where you live,
you've probably heard of East St. Louis, probably the most troubled and
dangerous town outside of the major metropolises in the U.S. There are
a number of reasons for East St. Louis's problems, which have no place
in this column. Suffice to say the drug trade is alive and well, and shootings
are quite common. If you're working the night shift at my newspaper, odds
are at some point your editor will send you to East St. Louis at 9 p.m.
to cover a shooting. This increases your chances of getting shot.
The fact is, reporters are hated because we say the things you don't want
to hear. Say what you like about the idiotic excesses of some members of
the profession - none of us go into this field for money, fame or respect,
because we're not going to get it. We earn less than the assistant night
manager of the local QuikTrip, we're unknown to the vast majority and devoutly
hated by the rest, and even our own families don't respect what we do because
it's so terribly misunderstood.
I got into an argument about Daniel Pearl a few weeks ago with an ex-military
man. He said journalists had no business in a war zone. He brought up the
age-old crap about a Desert Storm maneuver that had to be cancelled because
CNN broadcasted the plans.
In deference to the social occasion of the day, I politely excused myself.
I wanted to say that it was common knowledge within the profession that
CNN got played - the military fed them stuff about a maneuver to fake out
the Iraqis, CNN broadcasted it, then they "cancelled" an operation they
never intended to do and got to blame the media while they were at it.
I wanted to say that Pearl wasn't in a war zone, he was tricked out of
his office for the specific purpose of kidnapping him. I wanted to say
that if Pearl had been a U.S. government official, a soldier on reconnaissance
or even on leave, if he had been an emissary of the Red Cross or a member
of the Peace Corps, the entire country would have screamed for us to do
something, to send in the Marines, to tear apart the neighborhoods of Karachi
and bring him home safe.
But because he was a reporter, it's okay to shake our heads for his poor
pregnant wife and say, "Isn't that too bad... Well, he had no business
there anyway."
We forget that without journalists, no one would know what happened outside
of our own city blocks. Without journalists, we would have to rely on press
releases from the Pentagon for what was happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Israel. Without journalists, Vietnam could have been passed off as
the best war we ever lost. Without journalists, Nixon would have served
a second full term, and isn't that a scary thought?
I'd like to think if I was shot at a fire, my colleagues wouldn't be saying,
"Well, she had no business at that fire anyway, she had a son." I'd rather
be there for my son, growing up, but if I can't, I want him to grow up
knowing his mother gave her life in the performance of her duty as a journalist,
telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, no matter
the cost.
As for grieving wife - and French journalist - Mariane Pearl, she has proved
to be stronger than much of the public. Instead of perpetuating a silly
stereotype of the helpless, dependent wife, I've been in awe of her resilience
and bravery, even offering to switch places with her husband. "I promise
you that the terrorists did not defeat my husband, no matter what they
did to him, nor did they succeed in seizing his dignity or value as a human
being," she said the day after learning of her husband's murder.
"It is a grim reminder that the practice of journalism, of obtaining and
disseminating information that Americans need, can be dangerous," said
Robert Leger, SPJ President-Elect and editorial page editor at The Springfield
(Mo.) News-Leader. "It is not just soldiers who risk their lives in the
defense of freedom."
Journalism is a public service and a calling to tell the truth, no matter
the personal cost. There is dignity, honor and risk to our profession.
We defend freedom as much, if not more, than the men in uniform. No one
ties a ribbon around a tree for us, nor do we expect them to do so. A prophet
is without honor in his own country, after all.
When one of us is killed in the performance of our duties, we grieve, but
we remain determined to bring the truth to light, no matter what. But when
his life's work is dismissed as unimportant, we all lose something, a sense
of the work so vital to freedom here and abroad. We forget that the basis
of freedom is the freedom to speak the truth, and it is for that freedom
that Daniel Pearl died. |
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Column Credo:
I'd be sitting in a restaurant and someone
would come up and say, "I don't like your column on this or that." I'd
hand him 35 cents. That was what the paper cost then. The refund on the
product. He'd get upset. Well, that's one attitude I have. Today,
it's half a buck. What can you buy for half a buck? Do I owe them something
that will be worth reading a hundred years from now? I don't think so.
Do I owe them something of the quality of Mark Twain? Naaa. Not for 50
cents.
I guess what I owe them is that when I
write something, it's what I think. No editor told me to write it. I'm
not doing it because the Tribune editorial page will like it, or not. So
they can be quite sure that they're getting what I think at the moment.
-- Mike Royko
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