A SCOTS journalist has written of his discomfort when reading press reports lauding war correspondents who have died while doing their job.
Writes Alan Fisher, on the website, ScottishReview.net: “Every time a journalist is killed in similar circumstances I’m saddened. War must be covered and journalists are the bridge between conflict and normality, essential to the understanding of war and its impact. But I also feel disconcerted in the way our profession lauds its dead.
“There is mawkishness to the coverage. We talk about the cost of bringing truth to the world, of highlighting the realities, of giving a voice to the voiceless. It is a noble goal yet many of those on the battlefield are there because of the glamour and excitement, because of the drama and the danger. They chose to be there unlike those they are covering.”
Fisher, who works for Al Jazeera English, adds: “I worry if our reverence for fallen journalistic comrades then gets in the way of telling the story, which was the original goal, and perhaps discredits their efforts. Only last weekend, the leader of the rebels in the Syrian city of Homs lamented that the western media paid more attention to the recent death of two journalists than that of the ‘tens of thousands of Syrians’.”
