#War zone danger for short free

Reporters also need competent and closely coordinated guidance and support from their media outlets spanning every single moment of their deployment.

Furthermore, reporters require special training, including first aid, particularly when operating in hostile environments. Deployments must be carefully planned, with proven and reliable contacts on the ground an absolute necessity. Some risks can be minimized, above all through comprehensive security management. Protecting correspondents on the ground requires constantly revamped measures that now include the use of aliases.ĭespite all the threats they face, journalists want to and must do their jobs. The Taliban, for example, specifically hunts down Afghan journalists. In their various conflict zones, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and IS seek to silence local journalists. In Latin America and Africa, local reporters and correspondents are chief targets. The dangers can also be categorized regionally. Journalists face the greatest amount of danger when reporting on military conflicts, terrorism, restrictive states, organized crime or – increasingly – politically motivated violence aimed explicitly at media representatives. The core of the problem is that, instead of being accepted as neutral observers, journalists are increasingly regarded as parties to the conflicts on which they report. To report on the disturbances and neo-Nazi demonstrations in the eastern city of Chemnitz, journalists could not do their jobs without police protection or facing manifest bodily harm on the streets. Last summer, for instance, Germans could witness this phenomenon firsthand. Yet this grim picture is quickly evolving elsewhere as well, in non-military contexts, even in Europe. The videos of the Islamic State celebrating the killings of reporters are evidence enough in their brutality. Journalists are often detained or kidnapped, to be used as propaganda tools or held for ransom. First, independent reporting is unwelcome in war zones.

In 2018, at least 80 journalists were killed – 15 in Afghanistan, 11 in Syria, nine in Mexico, six in India – all told 36 of them outside war regions. Indeed, journalists are increasingly becoming victims, and not by coincidence. Protective arrangements such as the Geneva Convention and “Press” or “TV” labels on body armor and vehicles no longer protect their legitimate users. The situation for reporters and their colleagues in the field is deteriorating by the day.

#War zone danger for short free

Only a free and independent press ensures objective information from all those affected by armed conflict. That makes the independent work of reporters all the more important in zones of war or crisis. Unfortunately, the remark attributed to Senator Hiram Johnson remains as valid today as when it was uttered in 1917: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” With the outbreak of armed conflict, information decays into propaganda, thereby becoming an additional weapon of war.