Committee to Protect Journalists
Committee to Protect Journalists reports that two journalists were injured while covering clashes in Iraq on Sunday, the director of a local TV station was arrested, and a newspaper office was raided on Monday.
Correspondent Maithem al-Shibani and cameraman Maitham al-Khafaji on assignment with the TV station Al-Hurra were wounded during a six-hour fight in the Jurf al-Sakhar district, CPJ reported. In the Makhmour district, Speda TV’s director Mohsen Shooani was arrested. And Al-Taakhi, a daily in Baghdad, was raided.
“Times of crisis put journalists at greater risk, but it is exactly at these times that the work of journalists is crucial,” said CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour.
On June 27, Poynter’s Ben Mullin reported on the threat that ISIS poses to journalists.
More journalists have been killed in Iraq than any other country in the world, according to data published by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Since 1992, 248 media workers have lost their lives in the country, nearly double the amount in the second most dangerous country, the Philippines.
And, Mullin reported, local journalists are usually the most in danger.
Because they have an intimate knowledge of the area, locals often report from the most dangerous areas, said Jason Stern, a Middle East and North Africa Research Associate for the Committee to Protect Journalists. And because they don’t usually have the security measures afforded by the institutional backing of large western media organizations, they run the highest risk of being killed.
“Even though international journalists get the most attention in the media, it’s the local journalists who bear the most risk in any country,” Stern said.
On June 24, Mullin also wrote about U.S. news organizations returning to Iraq.
Comments