The Serious Issue of Journalists Murdering

Jason

Professor

ENGL 102

21 Feb 2011

The Serious Issue of Journalists Murdering

According to Frank Smyth, author of "Murdering with Impunity", many journalists were killed in innocence and no one responsible for the killing.

Frank Smyth states that most journalists were killed on the job. Some journalists working in war zones were killed not because of firefight or attack but by individual murdered. He gives an example that Atwar Bahjar who was a journalist in Iraqi and reports for Al-Jazeera was killed by armed men attack. Frank Smyth also states that "the killing of local journalists is most common." Such as Valentin Valdes de Saltillo, Ghulam Sindbu Hyderabad, etc, who were local journalists and being killed after their report. Therefore, most journalists were killed in their jobs and no one even remember their names.

There are many unsolved crimes about killing journalists. Such as the case "the murder of Maria Jose Bravo", the journalist Jean Helene was shot by a police officer when he was waiting to interview an opposition activist. Such case remains unsolved, because people doubt how to judge a person who is a journalist or not. Besides, government officials kill many journalists who are anti-government political groups and movements. Actually, some journalist who fight for press freedom or human rights were be killed by government, those cases frightened other journalists and publishing house. Cases are like some restrictive nations, such as China and Iran, who jailer of journalists.

There are many journalists are not being murdered but being shot. Frank Smyth point out that, murdering is very different from shot, when in murder no one doubt about the killing but the problem is who is murder? However, in shot everyone knows who is killer but problem is that justified? A well-known case is a group of journalists who are working for the TV channel HBO, they were shot by Israeli army even they claimed they are journalists. Therefore, journalists are never has the protection as they should have, even they contribute a lot for presses and governments update news.

All of those unsolved journalists murdering cases indicates that people should aware of this issue and gives journalists respects and protections. The global press freedom groups state that presses should indentify which journalists have right to report certain cases and journalists should be licensed according to political criteria. So, journalists can be special from normal citizens. However, those ideas can't stop the killing of journalists, as some nations restrict press freedom and no penalty about jailer journalists. So, Frank Smyth holds the idea that the first step