Last week I got a surprising email from a close friend and fellow journalist–someone by the name of Christian Poveda had been murdered in El Salvador. My friend knew Mr. Poveda years back while reporting on the conflicts in the 80’s in El Salvador and Nicaragua. In more recent years, Poveda had been doing controversial and dangerous reporting on notorious gangs in El Salvador for a documentary called “La Vida Loca” . I also vaguely knew Poveda, having followed his progress with the documentary, as his friend on Facebook, and had sent him a Facebook message or two in the past year. The news about Poveda was shocking, especially because I had admired him so much for his bravery in tackling such dangerous work and living to tell about it.
My first thought was to tell, in some small way, about Poveda’s work and what he had given his life for. So I wrote about him in my blog. But I had to create a new category: Journalists Killed. It was a sickening sight to see the new category in black and white, but it made me think about things more deeply.
It isn’t that Poveda’s murder was the first time I had heard of a journalist being murdered while working. It just happened to be the first time it hit so close to home. One day someone is posting updates on Facebook about their documentary, the next they are a victim of a silent war against journalists who dare to tread in dangerous territory to tell important stories.
During an interview with Carlos Lauría, senior program coordinator for the Americas for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), about Poveda’s murder, he reminded me that most murdered journalists also suffer the fate of their killer not being brought to justice.
“Impunity is the norm in most cases of journalist assassinations around the world according to our research,” said Mr. Lauría of the CPJ during my interview with him for a story I wrote about Poveda’s death that was published in The Epoch Times. “There are many factors—overburdened justice systems, widespread corruption, no resources for investigations.”
Almost two weeks later, thoughts of Poveda and his unjust death still linger in my mind. He was shot in the head. Will his murder ever be solved? What about the journalists who were left behind in El Salvador? As CPJ’s Lauría told me, Poveda’s murder “sends a chilling message to Salvadoran journalists.”
It begs the question–what about the stories still to be told? The murder of the journalists going after the truly dangerous stories brings two kinds of death. One is their lives, the second is the eerie warning to all those who might come after to report.
In some countries, there has literally been a string of journalists murdered. Russia is a chilling example. The CPJ’s recent special report on Russia is called Anatomy of Injustice: The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia. A video report of the background of these murders–17 murders in the past 9 years, only 1 of which has been solved–includes an interview with CPJ’s Nina Ognianova and Muzaffar Suleymanov as they discuss impunity in the murders of Russian journalists.
Anatomy of Injustice: Video Report
There should be protection for journalists who go about their jobs reporting the news and getting the stories for the public. There should be harsh punishment awaiting those who dare to murder journalists. And there should be no category on a blog or a website discussing the phenomena of journalists being murdered and their murders not being solved.