There are many good reasons not to be a journalist. This is one of them. The story points to Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF - Reporters sans frontières) tally of 63 killed to make 2005 the deadliest year for journalists in the last decade.
Also interesting is Australia’s ranking in RSF’s Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005, where we come in 31st out of 167 countries. North Korea ranks as the worst, seven European countries (mostly Scandinavian) share first place, and the USA comes in at both 44 (American territory) and 137 (in Iraq).
And then there are the good reasons to be a journalist. Ah, I wish I had time to stand here (still without table/chairs) and write. Perhaps if I spent time writing posts offline instead of only writing when online I could go into something meaningful. Instead, again, this is all I choose to have time for.
3 comments ↓
Oooh. Sixty-three people dead? You’ll excuse if me I snort sarcastically. How many journos are there in the world? And how many died?
I bet a higher ratio of accountants die every year from sheer boredom. Or construction workers from their job descriptions.
Journos in dangerous places get paid a bucket load. And they love their job. If life was cushy for them, they wouldn’t get paid so much money and they wouldn’t have cool stories to report.
Sorry for sounding so nasty. But every now and then, journos really shit me.
Oh, I’ll be an international correspondent by this time next month, hopefully. But I’m not telling my blog that just yet.
So, Bren, you’ll be a journo soon, hopefully. You really shit me sometimes, ya know?
Gentlemen, gentlemen!
I’m sure there are a lot of journo’s in their home country who also die of sheer boredom, old age, getting hit by a bus - that sort of thing. I think the point though is that most of the journo’s being killed are NOT international correspondents getting paid bucketloads.
Instead it’s the poor sap who gets paid little in his own currency, risking his or her life to uncover something local that the rest of the world couldn’t give two naughty words about, but that individual could die for nonetheless…
If they’re being killed for doing their job, then I think it’s noteworthy. Acccountants are I think on the whole NOT being killed for doing their jobs.
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