LSE - Small Logo
LSE - Small Logo

Charlie Beckett

September 19th, 2006

Killing Journalism?

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Charlie Beckett

September 19th, 2006

Killing Journalism?

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

It’s one of the paradoxes of the modern news media that it has never been more easy to report instantly from around the world – and yet, it has never been more dangerous to do so.
Partly thanks to the agencies like Reuters and APTN it is now commonplace for TV News to go live from conflict zones like Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon within hours of a clash erupting. Newspaper journalists can file copy via satphone from the frontline and photographers can email pictures back to appear instantly on news websites.
But according to new figures being garnered by the International News Safety Institute, the person most likely to be killed in a war zone, per capita, is now not a civilian or a soldier but actually a journalist. Of course, the people really suffering in conflict zones are ordinary people and the military. But it’s a sign of how careful journalists have to be. There is far less respect for journalists from combatants who see the reporters and technicians as legitimate targets in the kind of chaotic, asymmetric warfare that characterises modern conflict. And governments, armed groups and the military are much keener to control the media by fair or foul means. All this makes it a constant journalistic battle to paint anything like a clear picture of a conflict through the fog of war. And that matters, because to prevent a conflict or bring it to an end, you have to understand it.
And it’s this that we’ll be discussing at a day of events at POLIS on Friday September 29th, sponsored by BBC News’ College of Journalism. In the afternoon there is a series of seminars for journalists on safety in conflict zones and then in the evening there is a public debate with Sir Malcolm Rifkind, David Loyn from the BBC, Adrian Wells the Sky News Foreign Editor and some other top names from the world of conflict reporting. Go to our website for details.

About the author

Charlie Beckett

Posted In: Research